You have to admit, Google makes it easy. Quite often, new small business owners and entrepreneurs need cost-effective ways in getting their businesses off the ground. When the question of voice comes up, it’s easy to simply use Google Voice. If you already have a Google account, you may quickly get a new local number and start using their service. Very likely, you were already using Google Voice for consumer use. It may be natural to keep using it for business needs.
Free and simple are very attractive. Before you know it, your business is off the ground and after using their free services for a while, you hit a few roadblocks. What are they?
Well, there are some pitfalls when using Google Voice. Let’s talk about a few of them.
No Technical Support
Voice services depend on solid technology. However, you may run into situations that require you to get technical support. Well, that’s a problem with Google Voice because there is no direct technical support line. You’ll have to go online and search the different forums and post your issue out there in the cloud. You might post your issue on Google’s own support forums, but will you get the service at the time you need it? Will they fully understand all your needs? Ultimately, you will realize that this was the choice you made by signing up for free voices service.
At JVoIP, all our customers get dedicated service. We provide high-quality service and will give you an option to submit your issue online or even call us. We will make sure you get the personalized support you deserve. Of course, this does require you pay for our services.
No Emergency Calling
According to Google’s own Terms of Service, you cannot place emergency calls. Users may think that they are placing calls using a telephone carrier, but in reality Google does not consider Google Voice a carrier. Instead, their app is an “enhanced call management application”. Basically, they are not an interconnected VoIP provider like we are. They have managed to avoid the FCC requirements on E911. Even if you call your local public safety answering service, your own caller ID may simply say “Unknown” and there is no physical address reported.
In this day and age where working from home is the norm, having access to emergency calling is a requirement. This is why the FCC requires E911 calling to all interconnected providers.
JVoIP provides emergency calling. Our phone systems are E911 capable and have been fully tested. You can be rest assured that if you place an emergency call, you will reach your local public-safety answering point (PSAP) and they will have all the necessary information about you. Your life is important.
No Hard Phone Support
Many small offices need physical phones. If you don’t use one today, you may require the use of hard phones in the future. Do you really want to be in that position now? The nice thing with hard phones are having a headset readily available for your calling needs. Also, voice quality is amazing. Sadly, you can’t just buy a hard phone for your G Voice account directly from Google.
JVoIP offers mainstream hard phones. Please reach out to us and we will let you know what your options are.
Lack of Toll-Free and Vanity Numbers
Would you like to buy or port a toll-free number? Sorry, that’s not possible with G Voice. What about a nice vanity number ending in 5000? They will not offer that or port any vanity numbers. Many small business need toll-free numbers when they expand their business. They also need vanity numbers to have easily-remembered numbers for their customers. Unfortunately, this is not supported with G Voice.
JVoIP will be happy to provide you with a toll-free or vanity number. Please reach out to us and we will provide you with options.
You will need to give up some privacy
It is quite staggering the amount of data these large cloud providers have on consumers. When signing up for free services, have you ever stopped and studied privacy statements? Well, here is Google Voice’s own privacy statement,
“Google Voice stores, processes and maintains your call history (including calling party phone number, called party phone number, date, time and duration of call), voicemail greeting(s), voicemail messages, Short Message Service (SMS) messages, recorded conversations, and other data related to your account in order to provide the service to you.”
Here is where they make their money. We pay with giving up some privacy. Google Voice reserved the right to maintain your call history, all those precious numbers of your family members and business contacts and more. If you use their voicemail services, recordings of the calls, text messages and anything related about this activity. Sure, the information will get get leaked, but they sure know a lot about you. This information is eventually used to sell you services.
At JVoIP, we are concerned about data privacy. We do not use your data, calls or messages to sell you services. The data belongs to you, period.
If you don’t use it, you lose it!
That’s right. Google Voice has the right to “reclaim” your Google Voice number if there is no activity for a period of 6 months. Can you believe that? What if you have a medical situation? What if you need to put the business on hold for a few months? Or what if they decide to reclaim your number due to other reasons you may not understand? Basically, they reserve the right the reclaim a number that belongs to them, not you.
As a business owner, you should make sure all business resources are yours to keep. You never want to run the risk of letting someone else take over what belongs to you. It’s like your Internet domain name. Imagine someone else reclaiming your domain and website due to inactivity. Is this an acceptable risk to you?
We hope this information educations you as to the use of Google Voice. Please reach out to us if you have any further questions on this topic.
