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.

[Google Voice is] great if you have a workforce that needs to make calls for business purposes from their personal mobile device, while keeping their personal phone number private. If you have a large company with its own telecom system, it probably won't be necessary if employees already have their own landlines or separate work phones.

Google Voice is perfect when your employees need to travel overseas or when your clients are all over the world. It is not well suited when you have to have local numbers in different countries or when you need to communicate with official or corporate channels via SMS on your smartphone using your google voice number.

I absolutely love the Google Voice app. They have made it so easy to make calls and to receive calls. I also really like that I do not have to give my personal phone number out to all of my clients. One thing I think needs improvement is texting. I wish that it could link to the texts on my actual phone. Other than that, I really enjoy it.

When you set up Google Voice, you pick from a list of numbers, and you can forward to other numbers such as your cell phone. This has helped me personally when I changed cell phone numbers since adopting this software, and I am very glad that I did because I was able to keep my Google Voice Number on my business cards and email signature while just simply redirecting the forwarding phone number to my new cell phone.

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.

Helps preserve your anonymity. You can link your classroom or cell phone to it and the receiver will only see the number google assigned you,

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.

Google Voice is very well suited to the small to medium sized business. I don't know if the infrastructure is great for a large organization, but then again, I am not a large organization so it very well may be. If you are looking to save money when starting a business then Google Voice is a no-brainer.

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.

You can compare this to Skype for Business or using Google Hangouts, but we like Google Voice because of the features and easy way to communicate. Not all people have to have the Google Voice app for communication to work, people only call a phone number without depending on both having the same app.

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

Google Voice is a useful feature in the Google suite which allows you to perform calls and texts with an internet connection. This is great in scenarios where you may not have a good cellular connection, but have access to an internet connection. Google Voice is also useful for keeping records of calls and texts due to its ability to search through texts and translate voicemails to text which then becomes searchable as well.

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.

Many of our users rely on their mobile devices, especially when out in the field or in our other areas and this is where google voice shines for us. It allows all of the devices to be linked and calls made from any of them without any complications, and it will also work great with multiple numbers. Number consolidation is easy and this the number the person getting the call will see.

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.

The best thing about Google Voice is that it gives you the freedom to create a specific number based on your needs (from anywhere in the world. It can be useful for your personal or work related needs). This makes the product appropriate for global organizations as well. Usage of the product on different platform is a must to have benefit, as on-the-go usage is important while being away from your desk/office. It allows you to direct calls to your company or personal SIM number - very beneficial if also you are able to distinguish numbers. Search and record functions are beneficial. Although it has a bit of a popular name, due to Google, it is quite useful and does the job.