Don’t you just love wading through someone’s rambling voicemail greeting in order to leave a message? Someday I need to press 5 (for more options) to find out what those are. Why I can’t press that first…; but I digress. Now, you can train others to do it a different way by setting a better example. Enter YouMail—trust me; callers will love it and so will you.

The whole idea is that you get to pick the greetings your callers get to hear AND how long the messages are. You can pick generic ones, pre-recorded ones, or ones you record, and you can assign one or many contacts to the same message, or individual recordings for each special contact using their name (makes ‘em grin big-time).  You can even set up messages for blocked calls, i.e. “We don’t accept calls from blocked numbers!”, or something of that nature.

Set up takes a little time, but full instructions are available on their site in the form of FAQ and video tutorials including:  how to import your contacts, which greetings to assign to which contacts, or whether to simply use the default greeting YouMail provides for everyone. It all happens from your desktop by logging into your account page on the YouMail site. You need a microphone, but you can also change a greeting for a caller from your phone when you check your messages. The basic service is FREE, but the paid versions allow for voice-to-text, transcription to email, and more. With either service you are given a number to call from your phone (almost ANY phone), which will then switch your carrier’s voicemail to YouMail and you’re set.

Sign up HERE and give it a try.

Features Available:

• Visual Voicemail
• Voice-to-Text
• Personal Greetings
• Voicemail Sharing
• Unwanted caller blocking
• Online community
• Voicemail by Email

Basic service: FREE

Paid version: Depends on plan and services you choose.