An electronic record is stored of an agreement between first and second parties for provision of voice mailboxes. An electronic voice mailbox configuration message for configuration of a voice mailbox for a third party is then received. The voice mailbox is automatically configured responsive to the received voice mailbox configuration message based on the stored electronic record of the agreement. For example, the voice mailbox may be configured to control access to the voice mailbox by the third party and/or configure a voice mailbox feature, such as a mailbox type, a pager notification feature, an operator zero out feature, a child mailbox feature, or a line sharing feature. The voice mailbox configuration message may be a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message that is received over a data communications network.