Callwave to Take Your Cell Phone Messages

Callwave served me well for a long time as my cell phone message service. It is reliable and I love the ability to archive an email copy of messages pertaining to transactions.

I found reasons to give YouMail a try, but I still miss the text conversion feature of Callwave. It was nice to be in a meeting and be able to read a brief summary of the text conversion of the message.

Callwave, a provider of online fax services, also has a very nifty cell phone messaging service. The basic service is free, which makes it even more useful. For the real estate professional, there is little value in the basic voicemail services from the cell providers. Callwave replaces your cell provider voicemail, providing flexibility and archiving value.

You program your phone system to route your unanswered calls to Callwave rather than Verizon, T-Mobile, Cingular, etc. When a caller leaves a message, you are alerted via several methods of your choice. You receive an email with a text summary called the "Gist" of the message. The email has a play link to play the voice message also. You can also elect to receive a text message with the "Gist" as the text.

The ability to get a brief idea of what the call is about is really quite valuable. You might be with clients and letting calls go to message. However, the text message arrives with the summary for you to read. If it's an emergency, you can excuse yourself to call back.

Another nice feature is the ability to reply via text message from your online message area. If you're at your computer and see a message that can be answered without a callback, you can send a text message to that cell from your desktop. You can also do this from your cell phone if you receive the text alerts. This is a great way to let someone know you're handling a situation, but you just don't have the time to talk to them at the moment.