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In its simplest form a voice mail system is essentially just another phone
answering system. They store their messages on a computer disk. Each user is
assigned a mailbox where they only have access to his or her messages. They are
also password protected so only the assigned user can access the messages in
their mailbox. Voice mail systems also allow each user to create their own
greeting message. This enables the user to pass on instructions or important
messages without taking the call.
Voice mails systems are usually additional features of existing in house phone
systems. When deciding which voice mail system to purchase you need to look at
two key aspects of each one: the number of user ports and the hours of memory
that is allocated to messages.
A good voice mail system will have enough ports to handle incoming calls
without delay. If all the ports are full, then any new callers will be delayed
in the system until a port becomes available. If a voice mail system has too
many ports then its capacity is wasted. The trick is to balance the number of
ports with the estimated number of potential customers.
The capacity of a voice mail system depends on the hours of memory it has
available. A system with a large number of ports and traffic may need a large
number of hours, where as a system with low traffic will need fewer hours. The
term hours of memory refers to capacity of a voice mail system to store any
messages.
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