I’m in the process of transitioning all of my business and personal contacts over to Google Voice. Even my mother calls my Google Voice number now, so you know I’m serious. Here’s why:
Google Voice transcribes your voice mail messages into email messages so you can read your emails. This saves time if you receive a lot of voice mail. And it allows you to check your messages when you aren’t able to listen to them.
Google Voice routes your calls to the phone you choose to use when the call comes in. You tell Google Voice which phones you’d like it to ring. For example, ring my cell phone and office phone during the week. On the weekend ring my cell phone and home phone. Or create contact groups and ring phones based on who is calling. Google Voice can pass through caller ID information so you can choose which calls to answer.
This is an important feature for me because I have my iPhone set to play a loud siren noise when my mother calls and would not want to loose this warning.
Google Voice saves you money by allowing you to leverage your lowest cost phone service.
I sometimes work from a home office but only give out my work phone number. Prior to Google Voice this prevented me from using my home phone, which is on Vonage, for business calls. So I’m spending $26 a month for 500 minutes with Vonage and not using most of those minutes. At the same time I’m spending more than $100 month with AT&T (for my iPhone) with its fickle service whose coverage shifts based on the number of cows congregating on the hill next to my house.
With Google Voice when a call comes in I can answer it on my Vonage phone when I’m at home. When I’m at home I can originate calls on my Vonage phone using Google voice so that the person I’m calling sees my Google voice number in their caller ID.
Google Voice even lets you originate calls from your iPhone or Android phone so you bypass your cell phone provider. So you’re only using your data connection.
Google Voice eliminates the need to give out a new phone number when you change phones.
Google voice’s email transcription is good enough but not great. For a free service, I’m satisfied. But if you want all of these features and better voice to email transcription check out Phonetag.com for about $10/month.
StarrForce is a Salesforce.com registered consulting partner who provides Salesforce support and implementation services to maximize your Salesforce investment.
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