For the most part, the voicemail system works flawlessly on all carriers and phones. Because of this, we take the voicemail system for granted and don’t notice how important it is unless it stops working. The biggest issue is that, unlike some other problems, diagnosing and fixing voicemail problems is very hard and confusing. This sometimes gets to the point that not even a carrier representative might fix your problem. An example of this is the iPhone voicemail delay problem. The voicemail problem has many causes which require different solutions.
But to get to the point, if your voicemail says “Welcome to the Message Management System. Please enter your mailbox number” when someone calls you on AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or any other carrier, there are a few different reasons why this might happen.
What causes this problem
No cell phone carrier or phone manufacturer has put out official statements on why this problem occurs. This has led some people to speculate on what the cause of this issue might be. Some speculations point out that this happens because:
- New or ported phone number not provisioned in the carrier’s voicemail system.
- Your iPhone is set as an Android or a basic generic phone on the carrier voicemail system’s end (or vice-versa).
- Swapping SIM from iPhone to Android (or vice-versa). This can lead to getting incorrect phone provisioning.
- There’s an ongoing network outage.
Fix the Welcome to the Message Management System
There are a few methods we can fix this problem depending on what caused the issue in the first place.
Solution 1: Disable call forwarding
This solution is pretty easy to accomplish. First, let’s make sure that Cellular Data is on by going to Settings> Celluar> Cellular Data (iPhone) or by swiping from top-to-bottom of the home screen and toggling on Data on Android devices.
Now we will need to disable call forwarding by dialing *73.
Solution 2: Just wait
If voicemail is not that important for you, then just wait. There’s a big chance that this problem will solve itself in a few days. This can happen if the carrier is having network problems, which they’ll eventually have to fix.
Solution 3: Reset your voicemail on the carrier’s end
If none of that worked for you, the ultimate answer would be to contact your carrier’s customer service. The representative will have to reset your voicemail service on his end. After he resets it on their end, you will receive the correct provisioning on your end. Unfortunately, you will need to have some luck and land yourself a representative with experience on this type of issue.