All about Voicemail for Digital Voice
What is Voicemail?
Voicemail answers and records calls when you're away from the phone or busy on another call.
Voicemail also includes the following features:
- Record a personal greeting for callers to hear, changing it as often as you like.
- Store up to 20 messages for Voicemail Essential and up to 30 for Voicemail.
- Access your messages when you're away from home. You will need to set up a PIN from your Home Phone first. Then to check your messages when you're out and about, just dial your home phone number, press star (*), then enter your PIN when Voicemail answers the call.
About new messages
When you have a new message, you will hear an interrupted dial tone on the phone line. You then simply dial 1571 to hear it.
Voicemail will also take the message and call you once have ended your call. This won’t happen for Voicemail Essential.
If you have a Digital Home Phone handset, the display will show you how many new Voicemail messages you have.
How long messages stay in Voicemail
Any new messages that have not been listened to for Voicemail Essential are stored for 60 days and for Voicemail that have not been listened to, they’re stored for 6 months.
Any saved messages for Voicemail Essential are stored for 20 days and for Voicemail, they’re stored for 30 days.
About Enhanced Voicemail
Voicemail Essential is free of charge, you can opt into Enhanced Voicemail for £4.03 a month.
With Enhanced Voicemail you can:
- Allocate VIP numbers
- Turn on Do not disturb
- Have access to a larger mailbox
- Speech recognition
- Receive enhanced message alerts
- Leave longer messages
- Keep messages in your inbox for longer.
Setting up a PIN
- Dial 1571 from your home phone.
- Select Option 3 from the main menu, for settings and features.
- Select Option 3 again to reset/setup a PIN. This can be between 4-10 digits.
Recording a personal greeting
To setup a new greeting you will need to follow these steps:
- Dial 1571 from your home phone.
- Select Option 2 from the main menu to set a personal greeting.
- Select Option 1 to record a personal greeting or select Option 2 to choose the standard greeting.
- If you choose Option 1, you can record a greeting after the tone. Once you finish recording, press square (#) to finish and save your greeting.
- You can listen to your recording before using it. To record another version, cancel recording and return to the greeting menu, by selecting star (*).
Accessing messages
Dial 1571 from your home phone to access your Voicemail. If you're using one of our Digital Voice handsets, the screen will also show if you have any messages - press the Voicemail button to listen to them.
Picking up messages when away from home
You need to set up a PIN (see above) from your home phone before you can access your messages away from home.
You then need you link your voicemail to your mobile number.
To do so:
- Dial 1571 from your home phone.
- Select Option 3 for settings and features.
- Select Option 4 for the Mobile Linking menu.
Once set up, when you're away from home (in the UK or abroad) dial your home number and wait for Voicemail to answer. Then press the star (*) key and enter your PIN to access your messages.
If your mobile is linked to Call Minder, you'll get a text message whenever someone leaves a voicemail on your messaging service.
About Voicemail Message Alerts
If you miss a call because you're on a call already, Voicemail will take a message and ring you shortly after you've hung up and tell you that you have a message. This won’t happen for Voicemail Essential.
When your mailbox is full
Callers will hear the message: "Sorry, this mailbox is full, it cannot accept any more messages." And when you dial 1571, you'll hear: "Welcome to Voicemail. Voicemail is completely full. Please delete any unwanted messages".
How to know if you have Voicemail
All Digital Voice customers have Voicemail.
About Voicemail and Call Diversion working together
When you have both Call Diversion and Voicemail and choose to activate Call Diversion, you will not hear the usual interrupted dial tone to indicate that the diversion is active. You'll only hear a change in dial tone when there is a new message on Voicemail.
BT 1471 updates when a call is answered by Voicemail
BT 1471 will update in the normal way if:
- Voicemail picks up the call when there is no answer.
- If you have Call Waiting active and are engaged on a call but choose not to take the second call, Voicemail will answer the call.
Please note: 1471 won't update with the last number called, if the call goes to your Voicemail when the line is busy.
Good to know
The maximum length of a single message is for Voicemail Essential is 2 minutes and for Voicemail it is 5 minutes.
Once deleted, there's no way of retrieving a message.
Change the number of rings before voicemail picks up
You can adjust the number of rings before Voicemail activates by logging into your My BT account or using your phone’s dial pad.
BT account
1. Sign into you BT account.
2. Scroll down to your products and click Manage.
3. Select manage on Digital Voice.
4. Scroll down to features and select Manage under Voicemail.
5. Select how many number of rings you'd like.
6. Select save.
Dial Pad
1. Dial 1571 from your home phone.
2. Select Option 3 from the main menu, for settings and features.
3. Select Option 2 to set how many times your phone rings. You can choose from 0 rings, a short ring, a medium ring, or a long ring.
4. You will hear an automated confirming your ring choice.
If you set up a Reminder Call and choose not to answer it, it will not divert to your Voicemail if you have Reminder Call set up.
Call Waiting working with Voicemail
If you have Voicemail and are on a call when a new incoming call arrives, an intrusion tone will advise you that a new call is waiting. The caller will hear the Call Waiting announcement, and, if you decide not to take the new call, after 21 seconds it will be diverted to Voicemail.
About alarms compatibility
Some social alarm and burglar alarm equipment may not be compatible with Voicemail. Please check with your alarm supplier.
Can callers hear different personalised greetings?
No. Callers will hear the same greeting you have set up, regardless of whether the line is busy or unanswered.
About BT Call Protect
Voicemail also includes BT Call Protect - a service that sends nuisance and unwanted calls to a junk voicemail. It helps to stop the worst offending nuisance calls, as well as providing you with the control to stop other unwanted calls. It’s simple and easy to manage.
For more information on this service and how to manage it, please review www.bt.com/help/bt-call-protect.
By having BT Call Protect with Voicemail, you'll also receive two extra features - your Voicemail service will work as normal.
Here’s what you’ll get:
- VIP
Make sure your important calls are never sent to your junk voicemail, irrespective of your other settings
- Do Not Disturb
If you don’t want to be disturbed by callers at certain times of the day, you can use your 'Do Not Disturb' feature