Verizon iPhone Voicemail challenge

I just switched to a Verizon iPhone after several years of using a Verizon BlackBerry. When I set my voicemail up on the BB, I had an option of turning off the female robot who speaks after I recorded my own greeting. You know, the one whose says: “At the tone, please leave your message…for more options, yada, yada, yada…” I hate making folks who call me listen to this, and want to turn it off, as I was able to do on my BB. But I can not figure out how to do this on my iPhone.

So I called Verizon. They tell me this robovoice is baked into the iPhone by Apple and cannot be removed from a voicemail greeting. I find this hard to believe. After all, the robovoice adds about six seconds to the message, and it doesn’t seem that it would be in Apple’s interests to make phone calls longer and deny a customer the choice of disabling this added-on message. However, making phone calls longer would seem to be very much in Verizon’s interests.

So:

-- Is the female robovoice a permanent part of iPhone voicemail on Verizon, even after you record your own greeting?

-- If so, who did this and what is the logic?

-- If it can be turned off, how does one do this?

Thanks for any insights. Mark