Not Just An Answering Machine
Written: Oct 24 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy To Use, Clear Message, Date/Time Stamp
Cons: None That We Have Found
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| tchoate's Full Review: 1717 Digital Answering Machine |
I probably purchased this product for something totally different than most people. I am the administrative assistant to the Pastor of a very active Cumberland Presbyterian Church. We send daily e-mail messages to all of our members with reminders, birthdays, prayer request and other important happenings in the church. We found that we were still missing out on getting our message to a group of people, those that don't have computers. I know in this day and age it is hard to believe, but some of our older senior adults just haven't made the switch to computers. So we decided to start a Daily Phone-News for these seniors so that they could be updated daily just like the Daily E-News recipients.
The Pastor decided that we needed an answering machine that would answer one phone line and would give us a long enough message time to read our Daily E-News onto the answering machine, so that this group could call in and listen to our message. He asked me to check out answering machines and buy one that was reasonably priced but would do the job. I looked at many different answering machines before purchasing the AT&T 1717.
Why This Machine?
I must say that for the price this machine had more features that we could use for what we needed the answering machine for. It had a longer recording time for your message, almost 2 minutes was what I was told, we have since timed it and found that we actually get about 1 1/2 minutes for our message. Most of the other answering machines did not give us anything close to that amount of time.
The Time Date Stamp was also great because we could tell the exact date, time and how many calls had come in to hear that day's message. It also gives the caller the chance to leave us a message after listening to ours. Sometimes that want us to add something to the Phone News the next day and with this machine we would know the exact date they called and know when they want us to put their message into the machine.
The tapeless feature was also a great selling point to us, because of the amount of use we would be giving the machine. Tapes tend to wear out quickly when recorded over again and again. The tapeless/digital answering machine would give us the freedom to record over and not have to worry about purchasing tapes when they wear out.
We have found that the message is very clear when calling in and listening to it. I can't say that this is due to it not having a tape or being digital, but we also have an answering machine that uses tapes and the message on it is not near as clear as on the AT&T 1717.
The ease of use of this machine was another big selling point for me. I am not great with answering machines, but the instructions for setting the date, time and recording your message are very easy to understand and in a step by step format. It also comes with a small step by step guide that we keep right by the machine in case someone other than myself has to record the message for the day.
The volume control on this machine allows us to turn it all the way down during the day when we are trying to work. That way if someone calls the machine we don't have to hear ourselves saying the same message over and over. This has been a great feature in our busy office.
How Is It Performing
As I have said we use this machine daily to record a new message. Most days as many as 10 to 15 members call in to hear the message and the AT&T 1717 has performed flawlessly. We have been very happy with the performance of this machine. We have had many of our members tell us how clear the message is when they call in.
Overall, we have heard nothing but compliments from our members on the sound quality on this machine. As an office staff we have been equally pleased with the date, time and ease of recording our message. We just delete the day before by pushing one button and push another button and record our new message. All in all the entire process only takes up about 5 minutes of my time daily.
If this answering machine performs this well for a busy church office, just imagine how happy you would be with it for your home use. I would say you would be extremely please with this product.
What are you waiting for, go out and get you an easy to use, easy to set-up answering machine today and start recording your message!
Thanks for reading!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tchoate
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: Plano
Reviews written: 325
Trusted by: 266 members
About Me:
Proud First Time Grandmother of a beautiful granddaughter born August 31, 2006.
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