Recently my company decided to do away with company owned cell phones and provide a stipend instead. For some of my colleagues this meant that they could quit carrying two cell phones and this was great news.
However, some of my colleagues saw a new dilemma:
1) “Do I continue to carry two cell phones?” One for personal use and one for business.
-OR-
2) “Do I carry one cell phone and give out my cell number for both personal and business calls?”
Fortunately, Google Voice gives us a much better third option:
3) Carry one phone with two numbers; one number for personal use and one for business.
Here are five reasons you should be using Google Voice now:
- You only need to carry one cell phone! You can use you cell phone’s number for personal calls and your Goggle Voice number for business calls or vice versa. Both numbers can be easily set up to ring on the same phone, but you will always know which number the caller is attempting to reach.
- You can’t beat the price! Google Voice is a FREE service if you have a Google account for calls and text messages inside the United States.
- Set up is quick and easy! There are many how-to articles and videos on how to get started. The video below gives you a great overview of Google Voice:
Here are a few other good articles and videos to get started: How to Use Google Voice on Your iPhone or Android Smartphone, Google Voice: The ultimate how-to guide, and Google Voice Tutorial.
- Visual Voicemail! I hate listening to and playing back audio voice messages, it’s time consuming, I often miss something (like when some one says their number way too fast and it’s not the number they are calling from) and I have to re-play the message multiple times. Google Voice uses Google’s speech-to-text technology to transcribe your voicemail, converting the voice message into a readable text. If Google Voice messes up the transcription (and it does sometimes make mistakes) or you prefer to hear the original message, you can also listen to the audio recording just like a traditional voicemail.
Try it today! It’s easy!
https://www.google.com/voice