Forum Discussion
Visual Voicemail
Any plans for Visual Voicemail for SMARTY and any other networks that use the 3 network infrastructure? Voicemail is quite 1990s in that it delivers a text with a just a phone number, so you have to dial voicemail in order to identify who the caller actually is? Most of the other networks in the UK now offer this feature (or hybrid notification by icon and caller info). 3 network in Hong Kong have visual voicemail, so why doesn’t the UK have this feature?
44 Replies
I'll add my vote for Visual Voicemail too - it cannot be hard to implement if the 3 network has it in place generally. Happy to pay extra for it if needed too - it is a very handy function!
Three doesn’t have visual voicemail, and if they haven’t implemented it after all these years, they never will.
I would greatly appreciate visual voicemail, that's a vote from me too.
I’d prefer to disable voicemail completely
Another vote from me for Visual Voicemail. I just assumed that in 2023 it would be standard to support it.
And yes, if I find a competitive offer that offers it then I’d switch.
Richard_2395043 You must accept that, for many customers, this is not a deal-breaker.
A lot of us are more interested in a good value-for-money network that allows us to call, send messages and use some internet.
It's a case of "gorses for courses" and I do understand that there are some who have different priorities.
You must accept that for a lot of people this feature is important. You don’t need to comment on everyone’s posts requesting it, to tell them it isn’t that important. Just because it’s not important to you doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. Stop being so patronising.
So when iOS 17 launched my Voicemail went from "call your voicemail" to a visual voicemail instead. I was pretty happy with this as it's so much easier to see your messages and call logs in a list, playable on demand.
Some weeks later though, it's reverted and i now have to call my voicemail to retrieve messages...
I can still play some visual voicemails I received post iOS17 installation though, these are still viewable and playable. But any new voicemail now doesn't show, and i have to call up to hear it.
Anyone know why this is?
Late reply, I know, but this will be because you switched from a network that supported Apple's Visual Voicemail feature to one that didn't.
Is this like a feature only on iOS or is it on Android as well? I've only seen a lot of hype for this from iOS users though .. I don't think my Android supports a live voicemail feature like this 🤔
Hi jassingh
Visual Voicemail has been available since Android 6 Marshmallow, but is not widely available, nor known about for some reason.
‘Thumbtel”, a London based company, offer a paid app called “HulloMail” available for both Android and iOS, which is a very capable replacement for iOS Visual Voicemail.
The lack of this feature is the only one that is making me consider leaving Smarty. Making it a £1/month add-on would be fine too.
Have a look at “Hullomail” from the London based “Thumbtel”
Its good
I was a long time free user of Hullomail then started paying when transcription was kind of new. Love the system but at £2.99 per month for 10 voicemails or £4.99 for unlimited it's not IMHO worth that much. The free tier showed you who called (integrated with my contacts) and you had a playable message already available on your phone. I'd pay £1 for that bit I don't want the premium transcription.
A £1 add-on from SMARTY would be very welcome option. No frills needed, just a list of messages and their phone number instead of having to phone in 'blind' and listen to the whole of a phone number that it will be nearly impossible to remember before getting to the message.
If this was 2001 again that would still be sub par.
+1 I'd love this functionality
I'm also disappointed and frustrated by this, it is genuinely enough of a deal breaker that I'm looking at alternative 30 day contract options.
Visual Voicemail becomes even more useful in the next major iOS release with a feature called Live Voicemail - you'll be able to screen voice mail calls and decide if you want to pick up, as it will do text-to-speech to type out what the person is saying! So useful for rejecting spam calls, or jumping on an important call that you didn't have the caller's number saved for.
https://appleinsider.com/inside/ios-17/tips/how-to-use-live-voicemail-in-ios-17
Respectfully, that's an assumption on your part, both that the cost of implementing this would need to be passed onto customers, and that "the vast majority" of customers wouldn't want it. 🙂
Smarty have added features before without increasing costs for customers, such as WiFi Calling, 4G calling and free WiFi on the London Underground. I doubt many customers were clamoring for those either, but I'm sure those in poor signal areas now find them valuable.
If cost is a concern, they could offer it as an Add-On, although it is included at no extra cost on most other networks (including other 30 day contract providers) and will only become more valuable with the upcoming Live Voicemail feature.
Just jumping on the bandwagon with this one. Visual voicemail isn't some new feature that's owned by one provider. Is there any update on this LouisK? The whole calling a number from a text thing and actually having to listen to each voicemail is not great.
PS. I know I can skip etc, but that's not the point.
