What is a voice note? Explanation, tips and how it works in a team inbox

What exactly is a voice note?

A voice note is an audio message that you record in a chat app and send immediately. It appears in the conversation as a bar with a play button and the length of the message. WhatsApp is the best-known app, but Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and the iPhone Messages app also support voice messages.

Voice note is English for 'spraaknotitie'. In Dutch we also say spraakbericht, spraakmemo or voicebericht; it's always the same thing. A voice memo is strictly speaking a recording you make for yourself, for example with the Voice Memos app on the iPhone, but in practice the words are used interchangeably.

Sending a voice note in WhatsApp

• Open the conversation and hold down the microphone button to the right of the text box.
• Record your message. Release to send it immediately.
• Long message? Whilst recording, swipe up to the lock. Then you don't have to hold the button and you can listen back to the message before sending it.
• Mistake? Swipe left to cancel the recording, or tap the bin if the message is locked.

Listen to a voice note

Tap the play button. With the 1x, 1.5x or 2x button next to the message you listen faster. If you hold the phone to your ear, WhatsApp plays the sound via the earpiece instead of the speaker, so others cannot listen in. Newer versions of WhatsApp can also transcribe a voice message; whether that works depends on your device and the language set.

Voice notes in a business: useful, but watch out

Customers increasingly send a voice note instead of a typed message. For the customer, that's easy: just record what's going on. For a business, it has two drawbacks. Only one person can listen to the message on one phone, and a voice note is difficult to find later when you search for what a customer said exactly.

So agree who picks up voice notes from customers, and add the key points from a voice note as a short note to the conversation. That way a colleague also knows what was agreed without having to listen to everything again.

How it works in Slimbot's team inbox

In Slimbot, your business WhatsApp number arrives in a shared inbox. When a customer sends a voice note, it appears as a message in the conversation, with a play button. Every colleague with access to the conversation can listen to it, even from the computer. The voice message remains stored with the customer, alongside the rest of the conversation history.

If you want to record something yourself, for example a personal explanation, you record a voice message using your computer's microphone and send it from the inbox. This works both with a connection via the WhatsApp app and with the official Cloud connection.

Fair to know: Slimbot's chatbot answers text messages. A voice note from a customer is not automatically transcribed or answered by the assistant; your team picks it up in the inbox.