Hi Ooma Users,
We’ve received a lot of terrific input from you over the last several weeks. Some good. Some, well, let’s say “not so good”. In this post I want to address the hot topic of voice mail. When laying out features that non-Premier customers would receive, we examined whether or not to include voicemail. The vast majority of phone systems sold over the last 3 years included an answering machine built into the base station. It seemed logical that we could remove the online voice mail option since most phone systems used in homes today included an answering machine.
Wrong.
An overwhelming percentage of the feedback was negative about removing voice mail. We do listen to our customers, so Ooma voicemail is going back into the product effective immediately (applies to all purchases made since the feature set changed 10/1/09 too). Ooma Hub, Ooma Hub/Scout, and Ooma Telo customers will have the built in web based voice mail with local, remote, or web based access just like before. For details on the complete feature set of the Ooma Hub and Ooma Telo please visit these links.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us; the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is how we make our service better, by maintaining an open dialog, and responding to as many of you as we possibly can. It’s with your help that we’ll continue to improve Ooma and change the face of telecommunications across the U.S.
Best regards,
Rich Buchanan
CMO
Ooma
(25 votes, average: 4.76 out of 5)
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That is a good news. I am a first-time-customer-to-be. For me, the lack of voicemail and caller name (in caller ID) were deal breakers. I think I might just buy ooma telo this holiday season.
wow, a company that actually listens to its customers. Go figure. Maybe I’ll buy an Ooma telo now.
Great news ! Way to go, Ooma. I went and bought two sets of Ooma today after seeing this post. I think a company that listens to its customers has great future.
Kudos on improving the Telo, and still keeping the Ooma corporation viable.
Keep up the great work!
Alright!!! Voicemail is back!!! its a really wonderful news for this coming holiday season, now we can save more than before. thanks OOMA!!!
I have my Ooma and love it . The best thing I could ever do. Love it.
I cant tell by the website what the status is on the other changes, like callerid name and phone support. Are those still included? Is the terms now the same for hub and telo?
What a relief…. I had just purchased the hub/scout a few months ago and when I found out vm was being removed I was mad and regretting the decision to switch to Ooma. Now, I’m a happy Ooma customer again. Thank you.
Sweet!
I’m glad that my buttons are going to do what they are designed to do.
I just wanted to say that I am *VERY* happy with ooma so far! Keep up the great work!
Peter M. Turso
Great news! As a very satisfied Telo owner (without an answering machine) I agree with some of the other posts that it’s very refreshing that a company listens to its customers.
Way to go, Rich! I don’t think you can go wrong making users happy! THANKS!
Good job. That is one of the reasons I went with the Hub instead of the Telo after holding off for months on my purchase (and this despite the fact that I bought Premier). Still happy with the Hub though and doubt I’ll ever use the Scout part of it.
This was going to be a deal breaker for me, so I am glad to hear that VM will be included. I am still unhappy about the caller ID with name being a part of premier, and hope that you also reconsider putting this back into the standard package.
I recently bought Ooma online and received it last week. I hadn’t taken it out of the plastic wrap yet because I was trying to decide whether I should return it.
With this news, I’m going to set it up after work tonight.
I just wanted to say that I also am disappointed about the caller ID name not being available in the standard package. However I am pleased to see that ooma has decided to bring back standard voice mail. I hope they change that as well.
I don’t know about you, but I just saved a lot of money by switching to Ooma Thank$ Ooma Bye, bye, ATT kiss my grits.
Thats certainly good news. But I’m one that prefrers to use our own answering system. It just seems to be simpler for my kids and wife to have somethng physical sitting on the counter flashng at you when you get home.
Every now and then, when one of us is on an important call and do not pick up an incoming call, it will roll over to ooma voicemail (which we prefer not to use). And yes, we even have it set for 59 seconds. If we forget to check the ooma messages later, we can miss an important message.
My point is… I’d like to see an option to turn OFF ooma voice mail in MY OOMA Preferences.
Other than that, we love Ooma and have been using it since January 2009. It paid for itself by July. We’re on month 3 with no phone bill.
Great News! Could you tell me if multiple mailboxes are available per line? If not, would be great feature to offer with Premier.
Rich, thank you so much for listening to all the input. I had also bought a Telo when it first came out and had it sitting unopened in the box ready to return because of the voicemail issue and the regulatory fee (understood that this isn’t Ooma’s fault, really). Now I think I’ll join the happy ooma-verse…
Please bring back caller ID name or get rid of the 15$ bi-yearly fee for new users, we have WAITED purposely months for the telo to come out.
And now we have found we need to pay in.
Or at the very least Drop the fee a little and allow people to PRE-PAY it for 5 years or longer !
I’m glad for the improvement, but a little annoyed.
I wanted to purchase an Ooma, but wanted the TELO (not knowing it would be more limited).
I waited for months to purchase the TELO. MONTHS!
only then to find it was significantly inferior to the hub.
So, I go out of my way to purchase an older, uglier model that has free voicemail.
Now you’re giving it for free?
I wish you’d told us eariler, I now wish I’d bought a TELO.
How can you reward customers who got screwed by purchasing the ugly Hub. Many, like me, purchased it recently due to your changed TOS
Antony,
It’s been less than 30 days since we introduced the Telo and you bought a Hub. Take the unit back to your retailer and exchange it for a Telo. We protect the retailer for 30 days post sale for returns.
The only thing you’ll have to do is call customer support to handle the “upgrade” from Hub to Telo and make sure you get all the features correctly entered into your new Telo service.
Rich Buchanan
Hello Rich,
I bought a telo yesterday.
I haven’t opened it yet. I was looking at comments similar to:
“Please bring back caller ID name or get rid of the 15$ bi-yearly fee for new users, we have WAITED purposely months for the telo to come out.”
2 other negatives:
a. 8.5c /minute to India
(free on vonage + lingo)
b. no support from ADT
So, your answer to this final question will help me decide to keep/return.
For maintaining my ADT alarm system,
if I decide to keep a “bare-minimum” landline,
and use the Telo for phone calls,
AND decide to keep my current phone number,
will that work,
or will I get another number from Ooma (through the cable modem
connection), and the landline keeps its current number?
thanks for your answer!
-Harsh
I am a Hub/Scout user, since mid of 2007. I am very happy with OOMA so far. This kind of responsiveness to user feedback is what makes OOMA experience, so better.
Thanks, and Keep it up!
returned my ooma telo,
since I couldnt get satisfactory answers re: ADT.
may buy again, if this changes.
I think these guys are idiots to think that people wouldn’t mind not having voicemail.
And then their clairifing statement still doesn’t cleare it up. They say “Ooma Hub, Ooma Hub/Scout, and Ooma Telo customers will have the built in web based voice mail with local, remote, or web based access just like before.”
They should have began the statement saying “ALL Ooma Hub, Ooma Hub/Scout, and Ooma Telo customers USING THE FREE OR PEMIUM SERVICE will have…”
I kind of agree with Anthony Williams. With Hubs selling at almost the same price as Telco’s … it was the free voicemail that prompted me to elect the older technology. I suspect you might see quite a few returned Hubs now. Ironically, I didn’t realize caller ID Name was no longer a Basic feature. Maybe you could offer that to Hub owners instead. Candidly, these features are included in most VOIP services and while I feel “late to the dance” with Ooma … the removal of these most basic of services is a little concerning.
As a Premier user for about 6 months now I couldn’t be more satisfied with the service. While I have no intention of switching it still impresses me to see a company listen to it’s customers (all the more reason to support OOMA).
To all the users on the basic plan, if you want more features (i.e. Caller Name), give some serious thought to upgrading to the Premeir plan instead of asking for it for ‘free’ (yes I know you purchased the hardware). OOMA’s Premier plan is still one of the least expensive VOIP options available (certainly if call quality is considered). Upgrading to Premier is a great way to get the features you want (and then some), and will maintain the viability of the OOMA business model. It will also promote more advanced features as the number of Premier subsribers grow and warrant the effort/money spent on new features.
The two deal breakers for me that have made me NOT buy the Telo is lack of included voicemail and no caller ID names in the standard package. I am glad to hear you are finally including voicemail, again, in the standard package.
Unfortunately without caller ID names I am still not buying the Telo. I know of no phone that only gives the user caller ID numbers without the names. The Telo is up against handsets like Panasonic (they include names in caller ID).
Make it so anyone that buys a Telo handset to use with the Telo base station gets free caller ID names. That will make the Telo + handset package worthwhile and allow you to compete with other phones like any Siemens, AT&T or Panasonic phone system.
So I am tempted to buy a Telo but not if it doesn’t include voice mail and caller ID names. I don’t want or need the Premiere service. I have very simple phone needs: just one line with an existing Panasonic wireless handset that handles caller ID names.
Is there any package (Core? Telo?) I can buy from Ooma at this point that will provide those two basic services and not cost me a yearly fee?
Dan, WTF? The point of this whole thread is that voice mail is now an included feature in all plans, including the free plan. PLEASE SCROLL UP AND READ THE TITLE OF THIS THREAD. If you want CNID with the free plan, then you have a problem. You may be able to set your phone up so that when a number that’s in _it’s_ directory is received, it will display the name, as your cell phone does.
@Steve. Thanks… the article and some of the comments seemed to contradict each other and I got confused. Also, from what I can make out (and again, it is confusing), the only Ooma product I can buy now that won’t incur some form of a yearly fee is the old “Core” (Hub and Scout); the Telo and all other products will have a $12 or so annual fee to cover taxes.
@Ms J,
I understand your comments about wanting the Caller ID name, however, you are not comparaing apples to apples. While the other hardware you mention (that Telo is competing against, Panasonic, etc.) supports Caller ID Name, so does the Ooma Telo hardware.
Unless I am mistaken, I don’t think Ooma is trying to provide their product as simply an alternative to replace a cordless phone. The real benefit of Ooma is not just the hardware, it’s the service. If you choose to use Ooma as a free VoIP service provider than you miss out on the caller ID name (a small price to pay for free phone service). However, if you want to use Ooma to replace your exisiting phone service then the small annual fee for the Premier service includes caller ID number AND name.