2008-10-30

Voicemail to Text: Callwave, PhoneTag, and You

For about a year I was a mildly happy user of CallWave.  To be honest, their service didn't do a great job of converting my voicemails to text - and it usually messed up the transcription in ways that made me laugh.  So I kept their beta service active on my phone, figuring it would get better.

After about a year, I never saw much improvement in the service.  They did send me a nice email asking if I'd be interested in upgrading.  It seemed that the only plan that would "cover" my needs was around $40/month - eek!  I opted to continue using the free "beta" service, as I saw nothing that led me to believe the actual transcription quality was any better on their premium offering.

Then, about two months ago, they sent me a fairly nasty note saying I had 48 hours to upgrade before they discontinued their beta service.  This didn't rub me the right way: I don't like having a gun held to my head, wasn't pleased with their offering or pricing, and felt that if they were going to put me (a free, leechy user) over a barrel once, they'd probably do it again.  So I started shopping. [To be fair, a day later they ended up extending this period to 2 weeks, but I was already gone by then...]

I came across several, but Simulscribe (now PhoneTag) and SpinVox were the only two that stood out as viable options.  I liked what both services offered and intended on trying them both.

However, after nearly two months with Simulscribe/PhoneTag - I have been very, very happy.  The quality of the transcription is excellent, and the service consistently works well!  I'm going to stick with them - and hopefully convince someone else to try SpinVox at some point in the future so I can compare.

Signup with Simulscribe using this link, and you and I will both get 30-days free.  Yay!

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