Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.
Welcome to Google Voice
Telephones make our lives easier every day, but we’ve all met with the limitations of what the existing technology can do for us. Maybe it’s missing an important call because you were away from your office. Maybe it’s juggling multiple voicemail inboxes or struggling to listen to voicemail in a crowded conference room or on a noisy train. Maybe its wishing you could set up a conference call right from your mobile phone and connect with colleagues instantly.
Now, Google Apps users can move beyond these limitation and use their telephones in new and more flexible ways by using Google Voice with their Google Apps accounts.
Google Voice is about giving you more control over your communications, regardless of which phone or carrier you use. Here’s a little bit about how it works:
- A Google Voice number is tied to you (not to a single device) and can ring all of your phones. This means when someone calls your Google Voice number, you can choose to have it ring your work phone, home phone, mobile phone, or all of them at once, so you’ll never miss a call again.
- Google Voice makes voicemail as easy as email by transcribing your voicemail messages and storing them all in one place, along with your SMS messages, for as long as you like. You’ve long had the ability to quickly scan email messages as they arrive, and Google Voice now brings this same flexibility to voicemail.
- With Google Voice you can switch phones in the middle of a call, so you can continue a conversation that you started on your desk phone from your mobile when you need to get going.
- You can also customize call settings based on who’s calling. Google Voice lets you choose which phones ring based on the caller, which voicemail greeting is played if you don’t answer, and allows you to block certain numbers or send them straight to voicemail. For example, with this functionality you could direct most calls to your desk phone, but also ring your mobile when an important customer calls, as well as serve different voicemail greetings to that customer than you do to your coworkers or suppliers.
Just like Google Apps, Google Voice runs in Google’s cloud so it can be accessed online, even when you are away from your phone.
Learn more and get started
Google Voice can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.
For more information, you can visit the Google Voice overview page to see video explanations of the key features or take a look at our Help Center for details instructions. You can also follow the latest product news and features on the Google Voice Blog.
Share your story
Have you already started using Google Voice at your organization, or plan to now that it’s available? Please share your story and your organization could be featured in the next Gone Google ad campaign!
Posted by Vincent Paquet, Product Manager, Google Voice
Note: Google Voice is only available in the U.S.
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