If your team’s still slogging through voicemails manually, you’re burning time. Sales, support, and operations folks all know the pain—listening, re-listening, jotting notes, chasing follow-ups late because you missed a key detail. Automating voicemail transcriptions in Aircall is a real fix, but only if you set it up right and know where the snags are. This guide is for anyone who wants to spend less time playing “voicemail detective” and more time actually helping customers.
Let’s get straight to it.
Why Automate Voicemail Transcriptions? (And Why Not?)
Before you dive in, know what you’re getting:
What’s great: - Speed. Read voicemails instantly—no more listening to every second. - Searchability. Find keywords, names, or numbers fast. - Sharing. Drop the text into Slack, email, or your CRM. - Accessibility. Text beats replaying messages in noisy offices.
What’s not: - Accuracy. Automated transcriptions will mangle names, accents, and technical terms. - Privacy. Sensitive info in voicemails ends up in text. Make sure your process is secure. - Cost. Some features need higher-tier plans or extra integrations.
If you need transcripts that are 100% perfect (e.g., for legal or medical records), automation alone probably won’t cut it. But for most sales or support use cases, it’s more than good enough.
Step 1: Check Your Aircall Plan and Settings
First, Aircall’s voicemail transcription is built-in, but not on every plan. As of 2024, it’s usually available on Professional and custom plans. If you’re on Essentials, you might be out of luck.
How to check: - Go to your Aircall dashboard. - Click on “Account” or “Billing.” - Look for “Voicemail Transcription” in your list of features.
Pro tip: If you don’t see it, talk to your Aircall rep. Sometimes it’s buried in plan details or can be trialed.
Don’t bother: If you’re still on a legacy plan or using the free trial, you probably won’t have access.
Step 2: Enable Voicemail Transcription
Assuming it’s available, turn it on:
- Log into the Aircall admin dashboard.
- Go to Numbers and pick the line(s) where you want transcription.
- Click Settings for that number.
- Find the Voicemail section.
- Toggle Transcription to “On.”
That’s it. For every new voicemail, Aircall will now attempt to generate a text transcript.
Worth noting: There’s no “magic” setting to improve transcription accuracy. It is what it is—machine speech recognition. If a caller is mumbling, you’ll get garbage text. No software fixes that.
Step 3: Decide Where the Transcriptions Go
Now, make sure the transcripts end up somewhere useful. By default, Aircall puts transcripts in:
- The Aircall app (web and mobile)
- Email notifications (if enabled)
- Connected CRMs, if you’ve set up an integration
Set up email notifications: - Go to User Settings > Notifications - Enable “Voicemail Email Alerts” for yourself or your team
For CRM integrations: - Go to Integrations - Pick your tool (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) - Make sure “Log voicemail transcripts” is enabled
Heads up: Not all CRMs support voicemail transcription data out of the box. Some only log the audio file, not the text. Check your integration settings or test it.
Don’t over-engineer: If your team ignores email, don’t bother with email alerts. Just make sure they know to check Aircall or your CRM.
Step 4: (Optional) Automate Further with Zapier or Webhooks
Aircall’s built-in tools are fine, but if you want transcripts to trigger workflows (Slack alerts, ticket creation, etc.), you’ll need automation.
Use Zapier:
- Connect Aircall to Zapier (you’ll need an account and admin rights).
- Set up a new Zap:
- Trigger: New voicemail (or new transcription) in Aircall
- Action: Send transcript to Slack, create a ticket in Zendesk, log in Google Sheets, etc.
Or use Webhooks: - Aircall supports webhooks for events like “voicemail.created” - Your dev team can catch these and send the transcript wherever it needs to go
Example use cases: - Push every voicemail transcript to a specific Slack channel - Create a support ticket with the transcript attached - Archive all transcripts in a shared Google Doc
Keep it simple: Start with one automation, see if it actually helps, and only add more if folks use them.
Step 5: Train Your Team (and Set Expectations)
Even the best automation is useless if your team ignores it or doesn’t know what to trust.
What to tell your team: - Transcriptions aren’t perfect. Always check the audio if something looks off. - Use search. You can now search for keywords—no more scrubbing through audio. - Don’t copy-paste blindly. Especially for names, numbers, or addresses. Double-check before sending to a customer. - Handle sensitive info with care. If voicemails include credit card numbers or private data, make sure you’re following your company’s privacy rules.
What doesn’t work: Relying 100% on transcripts for customer-facing replies. Use them as a shortcut, not the final word.
Step 6: Troubleshoot Common Problems
Transcriptions missing or incomplete? - Check if voicemail transcription is enabled for that number. - Make sure the caller actually left a message (sometimes it's just background noise). - Aircall sometimes skips very short voicemails. - If you’re using integrations, check if the data is flowing to the right place.
Transcripts are gibberish? - Check the audio quality. Bad line = bad transcript. There’s no fix for this. - Accents, background noise, or people speaking too fast will always trip up the software.
Transcripts not showing up in your CRM? - Double-check your integration settings. - Some CRMs need extra configuration to display transcript text. - Sometimes, you’ll need a custom field or mapping.
Still stuck? - Aircall support is pretty responsive—but have examples ready (voicemail time, number, what you expected).
What to Ignore (and What’s Not Worth Automating)
There are a million ways to overthink this. Here’s what’s not worth your time:
- Chasing 100% accuracy. Unless you have compliance needs, close-enough is fine.
- Automating responses off transcripts. Don’t set up bots to auto-reply based on voicemail text. You’ll annoy customers and embarrass yourself.
- Translating voicemails automatically. This rarely works well. Stick to English if possible, or review non-English voicemails manually.
Pro Tips for Real-World Teams
- Keep your voicemail greeting clear. A clear “please state your name and reason for calling” works wonders for transcription accuracy.
- Batch process follow-ups. Use search to pull up all “call back” requests each morning, and get through them fast.
- Give feedback to your team. Share especially bad/funny transcript errors to remind everyone to double-check.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
Automating voicemail transcriptions in Aircall is one of those “80/20” wins—most of the value, little effort. Don’t get bogged down in edge cases or try to automate every last step. Turn it on, route transcripts where your team actually works, and make sure everyone knows the limits. Over time, improve what actually helps your workflow. If it saves your team even ten minutes a day, that’s a win.
Now, get back to what matters—talking to people, not chasing voicemails.