Back in September I gave a lukewarm review of Google Voice. Since September, it’s been working much better. Much less lag, much better transcription quality. I use it now on my business cards, website, and so forth, and it’s a great tool to help screen calls that come in.
Google Voice is a free, invitation-only service. They recently gave me two invitations that I can give to the first two people who contact me at bhb@chetson.com. I believe you need to use GMail as your webmail provider in order to take full advantage of Google Voice. The two services work together.
Benjamin Ficker says:
I’ve already got it up and running as well. Are there any tips or tricks you’ve been using? Or just handing out like your regular phone number? I know it’s early, but I would love to see if anybody has put together a “best practices” for Google Voice and real estate…
November 9, 2009 — 8:04 pm
Damon Chetson says:
I use it as my regular business number. Since I’m a solo practitioner, it works well. But given the call routing features – you can have the phone ring an alternate phone if you want – you can use it with an office two or three people.
I know some people worry about the fact that clients, customers etc. will see two numbers – the google voice number that you advertise and they call – and the phone number that you call back to them with. There are workarounds for this, but I don’t use them.
I find that clients don’t mind, and in fact appreciate it when I give them my direct cell number and tell them that this is an unscreened, direct number in case they need to reach me in an emergency.
November 10, 2009 — 10:34 am