subject: 5 Reasons Why You Should Sign Up for a Google Voice Number [print this page] 5 Reasons Why You Should Sign Up for a Google Voice Number
Thanks to a generous friend in the design community, WayLay Design received an invitation to try out Google Voice in late 2009. Recently, Google decided to make GV available to the public without an invitation being required. Now that it is available to everyone, we highly recommend that businesses and entrepreneurs in particular sign up for it. Here are a few reasons why we love Google Voice:
1. You don't have to give our your personal phone number.
This is a huge plus for independent contractors and other small business owners who like to use their cell phones for business purposes but don't want to give out their personal cell phone numbers. A Google Voice number can mask your phone number. Also, if you ever change your personal phone number, you can still keep your GV number and reassign it to your new personal number. It helps keep you from going through the trouble of contacting everyone to update them on a new number or throwing out those 900 business cards you have with a now outdated phone number.
2. One phone number rings multiple phones.
By signing up for a Google Voice number, you get a phone number that you can use with as many existing and serviced phones as you want, such as connecting your GV number with your cell phone and your home phone. Whenever a client or customer calls your GV number, both your cell phone and your home phone will ring. If you have several associates who work for you, it's a great way to emulate a multi-line business phone system but better because everyone can be on-the-go and still accessible through their cell phones.
3. Make it easier for people to call you after they find your website.
Google Voice has a widget that you can embed on your website. Anyone who uses your widget can call you, and your phone number is always kept private. You can have multiple widgets with different settings. For example, if you feature each of your salespeople on your website by giving them their own page, you can create GV widgets for each person that will only ring that person's phone and not disturb anyone else.
4. You can receive voicemail transcripts of your messages through texts and save your minutes.
Google Voice has a transcription service that will immediately notify you if someone leaves you a voicemail and send you a text version of the audio. Although GV is still working on improving their transcriptions and making it more accurate, it can give you a general idea of what your voicemails are about. If you don't want to waste minutes by checking out your voicemail and listening to it through your phone, you can just log into your Google Voice account and listen to your messages through your computer.
5. You can screen callers.
There are multiple settings for Google Voice that helps you with screening calls. You can require that the caller say their name before you answer, block certain callers, or you can create lists that specify different voicemail greetings for each group of people.
If you are interested in learning more about Google Voice, you can watch these short informational videos here: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
