Google Voice for business use

[dee001]

Hello everyone, I have been downsizing a bit around my office and I been on the fence of using google voice as my published office line. I am one man show and been looking into some options for my office line in the past I been using Vonage. My concerns are if I get a local google voice number and someday I really want to keep this number will I be able to port this number away from Google? and are there any other concerns that I should be concern about? I love the idea that I could SMS from the number but I know in our world that the term free always come back to bite you .. Any thoughts or google voice business users with advice?

 

[Diggs]

I've been using Voice for years. It's an indispensable tool. Just for the fact alone that every voicemail is transcribed and set in an email for me is huge. No more he said/she said bla bla. I've even emailed the text of a voicemail back to a customer to remind them of what they said (oh yea - forgot about that they said...) ...and of course you can port out the number. There may be a slight charge though.

I can go on and on - number blocking, time of day scheduling, multiple phones for receiving calls, etc. The integration into the contacts is excellent. Just a click or two and I call from my contact list on my laptop to any of my phones I choose and then automatically to the customer. Customer only sees my work number no matter what phone I use to make the call.

 

[Archon Prime]

I would love it if they expanded it to Canada as well.

 

[Porthos]

I have been using it for years as well. I like the call block feature.
It is my only number and all I pay for is my $35 a month cell bill.

 

[DataMedics]

I've been using Google Voice for years for business as well. I have an 800 number pointed to my Google voice number, then have that forwarded to the office line and two cell phones.

My biggest complaint about Google voice is the delay before the calls come in. I think the phone rings three times on the customer's side before our phones actually start to ring. So we've got to be fast about picking it up right away before they get impatient and hang up.

 

[sapphirescales]

I tried it once and found it to be unreliable. Granted this was a few years ago, but even ONE missed phone call is potentially hundreds if not THOUSANDS of dollars lost, so I go with more professional solutions. They cost more, but it's worth it. Google Voice is good if you're cheap and getting 100% of your calls isn't that important to you.

 

[DataMedics]

I tried it once and found it to be unreliable. Granted this was a few years ago, but even ONE missed phone call is potentially hundreds if not THOUSANDS of dollars lost, so I go with more professional solutions. They cost more, but it's worth it. Google Voice is good if you're cheap and getting 100% of your calls isn't that important to you.

I've heard other people report that, but I've never experienced it myself. Perhaps because I've always got three lines receiving the calls. I do know that if you're just forwarding it to a cell phone you can have issues. My old Note 3 wasn't reliable with GV at all, but works 100% on the S7 edge.

Perhaps the issue more often relates to the phones it's on. At my office, I've got an Ooma directly linked with my GV account and it works flawlessly just like any other landline (despite the few second ring delay I mentioned above). I even discovered that by having the GV plugin installed into Chrome I see the caller ID come in right away on my computer screen several seconds before the phone rings, so I can head over to the phone before it starts to ring.

 

[Archon Prime]

My biggest complaint about Google voice is the delay before the calls come in. I think the phone rings three times on the customer's side before our phones actually start to ring. So we've got to be fast about picking it up right away before they get impatient and hang up.

I'm wondering if the delay is because it's being forwarded basically twice. From toll free to Google voice to Cell/office? Or is that just what happens in general?

 

[dee001]

Is there any way to control what shows on the outgoing calls caller ID name?

 

[Fred Claus]

As someone who uses Vonage now and used to use GV I can speak to both ends of it. I'm also a one man operation. GV is a great service, and it was very dependable for me. I got away from them when it was talked about that I would have a partner in the business and needed a second extension. Google voice is not really meant for business use. That being said, if you want to port your existing number to Google Voice you will have to check to see if it's portable. If you want them to assign you a number they can, but only a select batch of them. For example all the businesses in my town have 716-773- numbers. Google voice wasn't able to get me a 716-773 number, where I could if I went with the local phone company or the VOIP systems around here. That's one concern. The other concern you have is can you port away from GV? Yes, you can. I think it was 4.00 to unlock the number and then you can port to someone else if you wish. However you can't port back to them if you opt to at some point.

 

[DataMedics]

I'm wondering if the delay is because it's being forwarded basically twice. From toll-free to Google voice to Cell/office? Or is that just what happens in general?

No, it's just what happens in general, regardless of whether they dial the 800 number or directly dial the GV number. But, having the calls pop up on the computer screen helps since I see a call coming in 5 seconds before the actual phone rings.

 

[cypress]

Yeah, I've been using Google Voice for about 4 years now and I love it.