Be Prepared: Your Business Voicemail IS Discoverable
August 25, 2010
Prior to the arrival of digital technology for voice messaging, laws regarding disclosure of communications for the purpose of litigation mostly excluded voicemail due to the unreasonable burden associated with saving and locating relevant messages. However, with the widespread adoption of unified messaging, courts are increasingly applying the same rules of discoverability to voicemail as to email. What used to be considered an exception is now an expectation.
Thompson Hine, one of the nation's leading law firms for business litigation, recently posted this statement of advisement to its clients: "Because digitized voicemail is discoverable, failing to maintain this data may constitute 'spoliation' of evidence, meaning that if you fail to preserve key voicemail messages that your adversary claims are relevant, you may be barred from contradicting the evidence that your adversary claims was contained in the voicemail."
Steven C. Bennett, Partner in the New York City offices of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue and chair of the firm's E-Discovery Committee, expands on the thought. "In the middle of litigation is no time to formulate, much less implement, a new data preservation and production policy. Precisely the opposite is true. A business benefits greatly from having a well-considered policy in place, in advance of litigation. Often, what is possible to preserve and produce under that policy will be the base-line against which actual obligations in litigation will be measured."
Businesses today have two choices: Implement an effective means for preserving and accessing past voicemail messages, or risk the legal costs and potential damages associated with lack of compliance to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure guiding data discoverability.
Mutare Software, an independent developer of applications for enterprise voice messaging and computer telephony integration, offers two solutions for Avaya voicemail that offer a simple and cost-effective solution for voicemail archiving and retrieval while providing other productivity-enhancing features.
The first, Message Archive, continuously monitors selected voice mailboxes for new messages and copies them to a permanent repository. From the Message Archive webpage, administrators can select which mailboxes to archive and can use the retrieval tools to search for relevant messages based on time and date, delivery mailbox and sender ID. While most commonly deployed as a tool for compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley and Civil Rules of Procedure), Message Archive has been used for a variety of purposes, including call center agent training.
Organizations interested in the productivity enhancement of unified message combined with voicemail archiving capabilities should consider Mutare's EVM Plus, which delivers of copy to the voice message to the user email inbox without need for a desktop client. These message can be archived and retrieved with the same ease and convenience of email. Should the customer choose to add Mutare's giSTT speech to text transcription service to EVM, voice messages also appear as searchable text in the body of the email.
"It is becoming an accepted fact that the separation of voicemail from email does not provide legal protection from the rules of discoverability and, in fact, may actually make a company vulnerable to legal costs associated with non-compliance," says Ben Crown, President of Mutare Software. "When companies measure the increased productivity and improved customer service associated with unified communications and the amazing voice to text applications, they realize the benefits and payback can be huge. For those not ready for full deployment of unified messaging to their employees, Message Archive is an extremely cost-effective way to ensure legal compliance."
For further information about EVM, giSTT, and Message Archive, visit www.mutare.com
About Mutare Software
Mutare Software is changing the way business communicates. Innovative messaging solutions such as EVM PlusTM and giSTTTM enable employees to read voicemail messages in email for faster decisions, profitable transactions, and closer relationships between customers, employees and suppliers. Mutare is known for its voice and web self-service applications, call center administration tools, and custom Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions that deliver high value and improve customer service. Visit www.mutare.com and see what Mutare Software can do for your bottom line.
