The Personal Touch

Alltel Wireless yesterday began offering Voicemail MAX, an application that lets subscribers personalize outgoing voicemail greetings with the voices of Hollywood stars, comedians, celebrity impersonators, and top-selling music artists.

Developed by 9 Squared, a provider of mobile content, Voicemail MAX features hundred of messages from Larry the Cable Guy, Steve Harvey, Orlando Jones, rapper T.I., and popular voices from Comedy Central’s Reno 911.

Voicemail MAX is available on select phones and provides access to more than 500 audio clips recorded by premier voice talent. Subscribers can add things like their name or other bits of information to the message as well.
One greeting may be purchased for $2.99, and customers can choose from a wide variety of content categories including music, sports, business, holiday, cartoons, and many others.

The Voicemail MAX service complements a voicemail-to-text solution that Alltel began offering in late December. Subscribers of that speech-to-text-based service, using SpinVox's Voice2TXT technology, can have their voicemail messages sent to them as text files; leaving them the option to respond right away or save the message for later.

"If you’re in a meeting, it’s a great option to have," says Lucie Pathmann, director of marketing communications at Alltel. "You can see who’s calling and what they said, and respond without having them think that you’re screening your calls."

Together, Alltel is offering the two services "just to allow our subscribers to customize and personal their phones and what their friends, family, and colleagues hear when they call them," Pathmann says.