One Week on Google Voice: Progress and Pitfalls

I was lucky enough to be one of the people with a Grand Central account when Google took over with its new Google Voice service (sometimes being a geek who signs up for every new service pays off, even if you had no idea what you’d use it for). This gave me access to test out the Google Voice functions for a few weeks before going live, and not having to wait for my “invitation” to come back from Google. My company just activated the phone number on our real estate sites this week. The phones are ringing and so far, it’s been a fairly big success.

Review of services:

Free local phone number

This is the basis of the service, a free local number that you select, and can be forwarded to any number of other phones. We tried this out with up to 3 phones, and all seemed to work fine, ringing simultaneously. It was surprising that sometimes one phone would be delayed up to 2 rings after another phone had started ringing. Since we were sitting in the same room with all AT&T phones, I’m not sure what to make of it except random cell phone service connections.

You can also pay $10 to change numbers if you find a better one later. My Grand Central number wasn’t very good, so I used this option. There aren’t a whole lot of great numbers available right now, though.

Caller ID

This was one of the most intriguing parts for me. Although Google Voice allows you to show the caller’s phone number on your phone, it also allows you to show your Google number. We liked this option because we can create a distinct ringtone that goes off whenever a new web lead comes in. It’s great to hear that ring and know its our next client and not a salesman.

The only downside is that you don’t have the caller’s phone number on your screen. If you miss the call, you have to go online and look at the phone log to see who it was. Good to know it’s saved, but not necessarily easy.

Custom Voicemail Greetings

Nothing too special here, but you can have a variety of greetings pre-recorded, and activate a new one with a click of the mouse. This is much better than dialing 3, 4, 3, 5, 3 on your cell phone’s voicemail system.

SMS and email notification of voicemails

Nice little feature. If you’re using this for a team of people, each of you gets a text so that someone will always be checking the voicemail.

Call screening/Call presentation

This allows you to have callers record their name, and then you receive the call and decide to answer or send them to voicemail. This is not a good idea for a real estate application, in my opinion. Always answer the call as soon as possible. People hate talking to automated sytems.

Voicemail Transcription

Supposedly, it will send you an email with the transcribed voicemail. Sounds interesting, but we haven’t even tried it yet. Would it really work? Couldn’t one minor detail screw up the whole message? Call me a neo-Luddite, but I’m not buying this yet, even if it work 95% of the time.

Groups

You can set up different groups so that certain callers are routed to specific phones, and get different call presentations, etc. Not needed for our business purposes at this point, but could be great for personal use.

Call Widgets

This little “Call Me Now” button on your web site will connect to your phone, and when you’re on, connect back to the web user’s phone. Couldn’t they have just called you directly?

One Week Conclusion

Overall, we’ve been very pleased – after all it was free. We have more flexibility, less likelihood of missing a call, and an easy way to know when we “have to” answer the phone.

Suggestions (I know, the irony of asking for more out of a free service):

• Porting of old phone numbers – Everyone wants this, and Google is working on it, but for now you have to get a new number.
• Scheduling – I have a RingCentral account, and it allows you to schedule which phone will receive a call by the hour and day. You can send all calls to voicemail at 10pm, or send calls to just one phone between 9 and 10 am.
• Combination Caller ID/distinct ringtone – This is more of a phone issue than a Google issue, as I don’t see the feasibility, but I might as well ask for it. If I could hear the distinct ring and get the caller’s number, I’d be happy.