So if you read Tuesday’s blog post about our great launch with Mike Hostilo, you might remember me mentioning that potential customers will be able to reach Mike Hostilo directly on his website through Google Voice. I’m sure if you are all familiar with Google, as it is the most popular search engine on the internet by a wide margin, but you may not know what Google Voice is. That’s okay, because: 1. It’s still pretty new, and 2. It’s available through invite only. In other words, you have to be invited to use the service. So if you are unfamiliar with this term, you are not the only one. Here is an introduction to the service that is changing the way we’re communicating.
Google Voice basically acts as a communications tool that encompasses your cell phone, house phone, work phone, voicemail, e-mail, and text messaging into one function, along with other cool features. Google Voice gives you a single phone number for all your calls and SMS, or texts. You can program any phone you’d like to this number so that those who need to reach you have a better chance to. When someone calls, all of your phones will ring if you want them to. But that’s just one of the many things that makes this service great. You can route calls to different phones (work, home, cell) depending on who calls. You can receive voicemail notifications through email or phone, check your voicemails online or on your phone, and even receive a transcript of your voicemails. You can conference call, switch phones during a call, and record all your calls.
So what does this mean for us? Well, in the case of our client Mike Hostilo, Google Voice gives his customers a chance to reach him directly through his website. It also gives them a better chance of being able to actually speak to him the first time they call. Right now, the service is through invite only but we hope that it becomes more available in the future.