Google Voicehas been thesubject of controversyfor all the wrong reason since its availability was expanded originally this year . Even with limited availability , the religious service has reach almost 1.5 million substance abuser , and half of them reportedly use it daily .
The understanding for its popularity is n’t hard to see . Google Voice provides a embarrassment of call handling features at a damage that ca n’t be beat : free . For small and intermediate businesses , Google Voice is an opportunity to use advanced call management feature typically reserved for expensive voice solutions in larger enterprises .
Large company have IP - PBX ’s and dedicated vocalism administrators to manage it , or they have made the move to unified communications and have a voice environment built around Microsoft or Cisco or some other interconnected communications marketer . small-scale and intermediate businesses do n’t have the fiscal or personnel resources for those solution though . Let ’s look at how smaller business can put Google Voice to work :
1. Simultaneous Ring
Google Voice allows you to have an incoming call to the Google Voice number simultaneously ring on multiple phones . On an item-by-item basis , birdcall could phone an power desk phone and a wandering phone at the same time to assure authoritative calls accomplish you no matter where you are .
Businesses can put this feature film to use though as a strain of departmental call routing . you may use a Google Voice phone number for a department , such as sales agreement , or client service , and have the Google Voice bit at the same time telephone the desk phones of all of the people in the department so that client get an efficient response .
2. Custom Call Greeting and Routing
you’re able to set up Groups in Google Voice and establish unique call direction option for each group . A sales section can apply this function to correct up different groups for each salesperson . Incoming calls that are associated with a sales individual ’s grouping can be rout to go only to the designated exploiter ’s desk and fluid telephone , and if the call goes to voicemail it can have a impost message from the private sale person rather than a generic greeting .
Using a Google Voice number in this way , all customer can dial one number to strain the sales section , but existing customer will be gouge to their designate sales person , while song from new and potential customers would be managed using the nonremittal scope to simultaneously ring the whole section .
3. Voicemail by E-mail
When a raw voicemail is received in Google Voice can send the voice mail to an east - mail address and/or transliterate the audio frequency into the schoolbook of an vitamin E - mail message . you may configure Google Voice to deliver the voice mail message to an eastward - mail radical or statistical distribution inclination address so that all of the members of the department will receive the voice mail .
Having the voice mail sent to email at all will help check it is not overlooked entirely , and distributing the message to a group can improve the efficiency with which the department responds to customer inquiry and chair to significantly higher customer satisfaction .
4. Call screening
you’re able to configure Google Voice to announce incoming calls to you before you decide whether or not you want to take the call . When the phone tintinnabulation and you respond you are not connected immediately with the caller . Google Voice will identify the source of the call at which peak you could choose whether to accept it or pass it to voicemail .
This function can be used by an individual or a team to reduce wasted sentence and improve productiveness . If you are in the heart of a project , important yell can still be taken , while other calls can be send to voicemail so that you may stay focussed on more productive tasks .
Google recently foretell a novel option , asort of Google Voice Lite , that allow you to use some Google Voice feature while maintaining your existing number , but the functions I listed above require the standard Google Voice chronicle . Google Voice is not available to the general world just yet , but if you bang a supporter or a friend that has Google Voice you might be able to get an invite .
Tony Bradley is an selective information security and unified communications expert with more than a decennary of enterprisingness IT experience . He tweets as@PCSecurityNewsand provide tips , advice and reassessment on information security department and unified communicating technologies on his web site attonybradley.com .
