Yeah, I didn't see anything in this thread that was even remotely argumentative or to be classified as a battle. Just offering options for the op.
However, providing accurate information is important. With that said, Google voice does not answer with a standard greeting. I have personal greetings for each member of my family and closest friend that call the most. All other calls are answered with my regular greeting in my voice that I recorded. This is no different than the standard Verizon voicemail or any other voice mail service. If you do not record a message, it automatically gives a standardized greeting.
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Accurate information is important, I agree. I understood completely and never disputed that if you record a personalized "regular" greeting, everyone that calls and for whom you have not recorded a custom greeting will get your personalized "regular" recorded greeting. So everything I said so far has been correct.
With that said, just as you indicated above in your last sentence unless you record a "regular" greeting such as "Hi, I'm away from my phone right now, but if you...", or "Hi, you've reached the cell phone of Phil, please leave...", or unless you've recorded a "personal greetings for each member of my family and closest friend that call the most", such as "Hey Mom, sorry I can't take your call right now...I'm in class, I'll call you later..." Google Voice answers with a "standardized greeting" that simply says something to the effect of "The Google Voice subscriber you're trying to reach is not available right now, please...".
I set up Google Voice last night, didn't record a "regular" greeting and then called my phone from both the home phone which has caller ID active and from my cell phone. In both cases, the Google Voice system answered with a generic "standardized greeting" that in no way indicated it recognized me.
As said before, where YouMail differs here is that even when you
don't record a custom greeting for each person,
and where you
don't record a personalized "regular" greeting (in other words, do nothing), but instead you activate the Smart Greeting feature, it will use the incoming caller's caller ID and will answer your phone with a greeting that is personalized using the incoming caller's name as it's provided by the caller ID, and will also use your name as it's typed in your account. This way, anyone who is not on your contact list and doesn't have a customized greeting doesn't get the same boring "regular" greeting in your voice, but instead actually gets a professional sounding personalized greeting too!
SO... I will say once again, that if someone named Steve, who I've never spoken to before, don't have in my contacts list, and for all intents and purposes is a complete stranger should answer an advertisement and call my cell phone and it goes to YouMail voicemail, YouMail will answer based on his caller ID. If his caller ID is Stephen, then the call would be answered with "Hello Stephen, Phillip is unavailable right now..." This feature saves me time since I don't have to set up custom greetings for all my family and friends, and they actually get a kick out of the way it answers my phone for me in someone else's voice (like a personal assistant), and yet still knows their name.
I also find that feature alone to be quite powerful especially for me as I run a business where complete strangers call me for our businesses' services, and when they do and our voicemail answers and greets them with their own name, they are both surprised and delighted. It generates a talking point when we actually do get to speak with them since one of the first things they ask is how our voice mail we knew who they were and how our answering machine knew to greet them by name. With this personalization they are generally more inclined to let their guard down and be ready to discuss their needs and how we can fulfill them.
And it wasn't necessarily a battle (my poor choice of words) but felt like it might be headed towards a "my voicemail is better than yours" kind of thing. There would be no reason for someone to discount one service for another since not everyone wants all the bells and whistles. The OP mentioned a Voicemail system, I replied, and so did Zandar. When the OP asked next for a FREE Texting alternative, I responded, and again so did Zandar. It just so happens that my recommendations were two separate tools or services, and Zandar's were one and the same. Neither one is perfect for everyone and the desire for choices and personalization is a part of human nature, otherwise we'd all be talking on the iPhone forum right now.
It wasn't what was said that caused me to address the "battle" but how it was said. I simply wanted to make sure that I wasn't being misunderstood to be promoting such a joust and also to be sure Zandar didn't either. As far as I'm concerned, Zandar and I are cool, and I believe he or she feels the same. If not, I'm sure he or she will address it with me. Perhaps I was a bit over-sensitive as well and for that I apologize formally to Zandar, but as you probably know, things can get pretty out of hand fairly quickly on these forums and I was only interested in keeping it civil, informative, and on topic.
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