Slow answer by voicemail, no dashboard service anouncements

Posts: 132 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 132

I just had a caller comment that they had called earlier, but were not able to leave a voicemail. I made a test call to my number (while it was in use), and to my surprise, it rang several times rather than going straight to voicemail.

Once it did answer, there was a click, followed by a long period of silence. Finally, after about half a minute, my recorded greeting started. I can certainly understand why the caller thought that the voicemail was not working.

Looking for the reason, I logged in to my web account, but there were no service announcements. Interestingly, under both "Received Calls" and "Placed Calls", there were messages as follows:

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Call Activity information is temporarily unavailable. This information should be available shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
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So, obviously there is SOME service issue, if only with the call history. My question is, why don't either of these problems appear in the service announcements area?

Failing that, how can one tell if the voicemail problem is being addressed...or when it can be expected to work properly?

Is anyone else having this slow voicemail response problem?

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 06, 2006 Posts: 19

MrMark wrote:

Is anyone else having this slow voicemail response problem?

I just called my Vonage number and I could hear the call transfer over to voicemail in about the same time (number of rings), but after hearing the click-over transfer, there was about a 5-10 second delay before my greeting was played.

Yeah, if I was a regular inbound caller, I'd think the call got disconnected or something was wrong.

****!

Posts: 132 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 132

I just tried it again, and this time it answered immediately and the lag before the recorded greeting was less than a second...'not sure what was wrong...never did see anything on my dashboard...

Sigh...I wonder if I need to monitor this...(?) It would be nice if it would just work, without need to worry about it.

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 06, 2006 Posts: 19

MrMark wrote:

I just tried it again, and this time it answered immediately and the lag before the recorded greeting was less than a second...'not sure what was wrong...never did see anything on my dashboard...

Sigh...I wonder if I need to monitor this...(?) It would be nice if it would just work, without need to worry about it.

I wish it would "just work", too.

I just signed up for Vonage yesterday. I got it up and running right away, but I have a long and versatile background with computers and routers and had done a lot of research, especially in these forums, about what to expect.

With that said, I'm still noticing peculiarities, glitches, and problems that make Vonage Voip a difficult user experience. Someone like my mom would never be satisfied with Vonage Voip because it doesn't "just work" like her connection from the phone company.

Me, I'm willing to try it out and maybe even endure for the $ savings, but even I have my limits and I'm starting to see how managing or dealing with Vonage regularly might eat up enough of my time and patience to erode the $ value I'm supposedly saving.

For Vonage or any other Voip to succeed long-term, they're going to have to improve the "just work" factor.

Posts: 132 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 132

genericadm wrote:

...For Vonage or any other Voip to succeed long-term, they're going to have to improve the "just work" factor.

Well said!

I remain enthusiastic about the concept. In fact, I currently have four Vonage lines of my own and two more that I am responsible for.

Even so, I am less than enamoured of the execution. If only there were some way to get feedback to the people who can make a difference...I wonder if that would help. Some of the issues are just the result of poor policy...those would be easy to fix.

Posts: 132 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 132

Okay, so it's doing it again...is anyone else having this problem today?

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 06, 2006 Posts: 19

MrMark wrote:

Okay, so it's doing it again...is anyone else having this problem today?

I just tried my #. No delay this time. Works as it should. Could be an on-again, off-again problem that Vonage won't post a Service Announcement for.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when companies have "Service Status" pages and don't bother to put service information in them. It's like they're living in denial, thinking that if they don't post there's a problem it doesn't exist or it will go away.

S T O O P I D ! (sic).

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 16, 2005 Posts: 11

I have the same thing happen to me when I call home from work. Sometimes a long delay before my greeting is played. Agreed Vonage needs to make this 100%.