Business settings
Voicemail capture
Have your phone system email its voicemail notifications to HaulHQ, and a voicemail with a real message becomes a lead on its own, with the transcript and the callback number.
This applies to both workflows
What are the two workflows?Most phone systems can email you when somebody leaves a voicemail, and that email usually carries a transcript. Point those emails at HaulHQ as well as at yourself, and a voicemail with an actual message in it becomes a lead on its own: the callback number, the transcript, and a link to listen. You stop going through the voicemail box looking for the real ones.
Setting it up
Two things, both one-time. You are not changing phone service and nothing is asked of you again afterwards.
- 1Open Settings > Notifications and find Voicemail capture. Copy the address shown there. Do not type it from memory -- an address that is almost right accepts nothing and tells you nothing.
- 2In your phone system, add that address as a voicemail notification recipient. In a system like Grasshopper: sign in, open Extensions, press Edit next to the extension, and under the question "Where do you want messages sent to?" choose Add email address, paste it, then Add.
- 3Back in Settings > Notifications, enter your business phone number under Which phone numbers are these voicemails for? and save. This is how we know the voicemail is yours.
Your number has to be listed, or nothing arrives
The notification email says which of your lines the voicemail came in on, and that is the only thing that tells us which business it belongs to. If that number is not entered in Settings > Notifications, the voicemail is not captured and no lead appears. We never guess. Enter the number exactly as your phone provider shows it -- any format is fine, we tidy it up.
Voicemail notifications are usually per extension, not per account
This is the one that catches people out. In Grasshopper, and in most systems built like it, the list of email recipients belongs to an extension. Add the address to your main extension and voicemails left on a second extension are still not captured, and nothing warns you. If you have more than one extension, add the address to each one you want captured.
You still get your own copy
Adding HaulHQ as a recipient does not replace you. Your phone system keeps emailing you exactly as it did, and every voicemail is still in your voicemail box. Nothing about capture removes a copy you already had.
What happens to a voicemail
Three different things, depending on who called and whether they said anything.
| The voicemail | What happens |
|---|---|
| Somebody new, with a real message | A new lead, with the callback number, the transcript word for word, and a link to listen. You are notified the same way you are for a website lead -- email, in-app, text and push, whichever of those you have switched on. |
| An existing customer | Not a lead - it joins their text thread instead, in time order with everything else you have said to each other, on the lead, job and customer pages. A customer phoning about a job they already booked is not a new enquiry, and putting them in the lead list buries a service request in the wrong queue. You are alerted exactly as you are when they text, by the same switch, and the alert opens their job. |
| Nothing we can read | Silence, noise, a few garbled words, or a transcript your provider could not produce. Nothing is created and you are not notified. The voicemail is still sitting in your voicemail box, exactly as before. |
What we do not do with the transcript
The transcript is shown to you word for word and nothing is filled in from it. Transcription mangles exactly the things you would want filled in: addresses come through as "13, two 50 North pioneer way", Vail comes through as "Vale", and a caller reading their number out loud becomes a row of words. So the lead carries the callback number from the notification header -- which is typed, not spoken -- the transcript, and nothing else. No address, no service type, no job size, and no summary. You read it and you decide.
- In a thread, the transcript is labelled as a transcript and shown with a link to listen. It is never styled as though the customer typed it, because they did not.
- The callback number comes from the notification, not from the caller speaking it, so it is always right even when the transcript is not.
- Nothing is ever sent back to the caller automatically. No text, no email, no quote. Somebody at your end calls them.
- A lead nobody picks up is archived after 14 days, like any other lead.
- Three voicemails from the same number in a week are three leads. Nothing merges them.
Common mistakes
"I added the email address and no leads are appearing."
Check that your business phone number is entered in the Voicemail capture section of Settings > Notifications, and check that you added the address to the right extension. Those two are the whole list of ways setup goes wrong quietly. A test voicemail with a sentence or two in it is the fastest way to tell: leave one yourself and watch the Leads page.
"A customer left a voicemail and no lead was created, so capture is broken."
That is capture working. Somebody already in your customer list is not a new lead, so no lead is created for them. It is a new enquiry from a number you have never dealt with that becomes a lead.
"I can delete the voicemails in my phone system now that HaulHQ has them."
Do not rely on that. We capture a voicemail that has a readable message in it; a voicemail we could not read is not stored as anything you can go and listen to from HaulHQ. Your voicemail box is still the complete copy.
"The transcript is wrong, so the lead is wrong."
The transcript is your phone provider's, not ours, and it is shown to you unedited on purpose. The part that matters is right regardless: the callback number is read from the notification, not from the recording. Call them and ask.