Google Voice

In the past, I would have happily recommended this for small business use cases. Due to its affordability, versatility, and low barrier to entry as well as its simplicity to use. Google Voice was integrated into the Chrome Browser, it was easily accessed from Gmail, and integrated into Gmail and could even be leveraged in such a way to when phone numbers were clicked on, Google Voice was the tool used. However over the past few years and more, in the past couple of years from 2021 to current, this tool seems to have lost favor with the Alphabet suite of tools. With the lack of integrations, it's becoming less stable, and people are just opting more for Google Meet Voice. The biggest area where this is less appropriate and where opportunity has opened for others is its lack of features, like virtual attendants, call recording, call transcription, SMS, MMS, CRM integration, and other key features even 1 or 2 person business really needs in this day and age.

Google Voice works well as a primary incoming line for a virtual office. It provides flexibility in taking calls from any location on my cell phone or over my laptop. As long as I have cell phone service or WiFi, I can make and receive calls. It’s very convenient when you can’t be tied down to one location but prefer not to give out your cell phone number.

I receive a lot of unsolicited calls and Google Voice has great functionality where I can screen who is calling me and decide if I would like to speak to that person. The texting of messages is superb, I like this functionality better than Voice functions. One of the scenarios that are less appropriate is that when a call is coming in and the auto-forward mode is one if I have Google Voice or Gmail open on my computer I can hear both functions ringing, the phone number used to auto-forward and the Google Voice on my browser.

Google Voice should be the go-to option for home/personal usage. It's rock solid as a backup phone service or even primary. It does well with voicemail and sms txt'ing. For a business, its capabilities are behind the competition and it does not seem to be a priority for Google.

Google Voice is great for quickly getting a work number going that's separate from your personal number, while still allowing you to use your current phone through forwarding of texts and phone calls, or by using the app. The enterprise features are great if you want to run a more complex phone system to redirect customer calls to specific departments.

If someone needs a new number, it is free and easy to get one with Google Voice and have calls and text auto forward to the number of your choice. There is a limit to how many minutes can be used with free version.

Google Voice is a good solution if you have a few US employees that need a local US phone the mostly use it for calls in the US. It is less appropriate is you're not located in the US or if your customers are not in the US.

Google Voice is great for small businesses, to establish a dedicated phone number and a presence, without needing to use personal phones or invest in a lot of expensive equipment or phone plans.

Google Voice is great to use if you do not like giving out your personal phone number. Use your Google Voice number this way if you don't want to worry about getting a ton of spam calls on your private line. Having Google Voice is also handy because when voicemails are left, it will auto transcribe the phone call so that you can just read the voicemail instead of having to listen to it. Google Voice is not great to use if you do not want those that are calling you to know that you gave them a Google Voice Phone number to call, which might be urn off to some people.

Google Events is well suited to providing a platform upon which multiple people can be logged on and work at once. It is ill suited in how one is not able to mark messages as unread, or flag them to respond to them later, since when many messages are coming and going at the same time, it is very easy for messages to slip between the cracks and never be responded to.

Google Voice is well suited for a team that would like its employees to text/call one number. When an employee confirms for a shift, or is running late, everyone on my team sees it, but only one person needs to respond. It's very helpful to have that visibility, especially so that everyone on the team knows that texts/calls are being responded to. It can be an issue however when an employee wants to speak to someone directly on the team, and tries calling that number only to get someone else picking up. But usually, we just direct the employee to that specific person's direct phone line, as the Google Voice number is not the phone number associated with the phone.

Google Voice is great for communicating with a relatively small number of individuals. There’s no mass texting ability and, if you do need to communicate with a large number of people on an individual basis, you will quickly max out your daily limit. If you want to text a large number of people, you’ll probably want to invest in a different service or create multiple Voice numbers. I have no qualms about Voice’s voicemail functionality, but phone calls will come at a cost unless you are using Voice as an intermediary for a paid line.

I think Google Voice is a great option for individuals / workers that need to be accessible via different phones / phone numbers. Voice integrates these necessities into one easy-to-access location. One does not have to worry about missing calls with Google Voice connected on each device. An added benefit is the ability to choose a phone number with a specific area code. This enables individuals to either create phone numbers from their home location or locations where they work. The final positive that I would like to mention is the easy integration within the other Google services. Regarding areas of improvement, Voice is unable to make emergency calls and multimedia messaging can sometimes feel a bit complicated.

If you're in a work environment where you could benefit from a work phone, this is the tool for you. It allows you to have an independent phone number to be reached at, without the need to carry a second device. I believe this tool is invaluable for salespeople or professionals that interact with customers on a regular basis.

I can't think of a negative point about Google Voice, there are just so many things it does right!

This would be a great choice for small business or a new company that doesn't have legacy hardware to migrate/provision. Google has a BYO device policy so it's up to you to source equipment, get it provisioned, and configure them on your network. Support is minimal, so if you're inexperienced with provisioning desk phones or configuring VLAN's, etc. this might be a challenge. Not a problem for an experienced administrator except for not being able to access the phone web interface after being provisioned... perhaps this is intentional on Google's part to increase security, but it creates a deployment headache for a large organization that requires the technician to manually input the network settings on each phone after provisioning. Google Voice really shines on the mobile side, as this is where the soft phone has matured over the years. With GSuite it creates a convenient option for an SMB to add-on phone service with the email provider they (may) already have with dead-simple integration and deployment. Service is reliable, so long as your Wi-Fi network is up to the QoS needs of VoIP, and if it's not there is an option to use your carrier's service in place of your Wi-Fi for incoming/outgoing calls and texts. Google also offers a basic automated attendant and call routing which is unavailable with the free version.

Google Voice is well suited for individual to small team use. It is not intended to be used by large enterprises in my opinion. I think it also requires additional features of support should it be used in a larger team environment where mission-critical help may be necessary down the line.

Though not for every application, Google Voice is a great solution for establishing a business phone number without having to purchase a new phone line, and in a way that affords you some privacy. If you don't want to miss a message, I wouldn't recommend Google Voice as it's easier to neglect. It's a separate service than your personal phone and I often find I forget to reply to Google Voice messages.

Google Voice is best for users across the globe. If you have teams offshore and onshore and need a single platform to connect with everyone, Google Voice is best. Its integration with Android Call and other features makes it easy to use. The only area I see it lagging is in various plans. The other service provides a fix rate plan compared to Google pay as you go. Sometimes it's easier to have a monthly plan.

Anytime I'm at my desk, I always choose to use Google Voice rather than reaching for my phone. It's significantly less effort, as I can quickly open it, contact whoever I need to contact, and easily resume my work on my desktop. I can also very easily be communicating with someone while doing work as well.

Small businesses and technical support pros.

It's really well suited for a situation where you don't want to use your actual phone number for something. Like, Craigslist buying and selling, or any kind of blast type text messages to potential clients. It works well as you'd expect from Google these days.

It's really well suited for small scale offices where there are a limited amount of users connecting. It's not so great for larger offices or large communication environments. Google Voice works better for one on one communications, not a large set of concurrent communications. While it has a relatively light hardware footprint, running it in a browser can be slow at times. One also has to have a robust network setup as well.

Coming from Google, this is a great app and service that they offer, I cannot complain about it. The main feature I recommend others to use is the voice calling feature, because is a smooth and straight communication compared to other competitors. Going through your call logs may help to determine your daily goals.

It's a solid product that's easy to use if you travel often and/or need to have multiple devices and want to keep them all in sync. That's fairly common in this day in age hence Google Voice.