I was chatting with a few people on twitter and the subject of properly managing your dating life came up. I suggested that they use Google voice so that they could manage it easier. I was then asked how they could do this, so I thought I would blog about it.
With Google Voice you use one number to manage all your phones; your Google Voice number is tied to you, not to a particular device or location.
The features that will come in handy for our purposes are listed below.
- Customize your callers' experience
- Define which phones ring, based on who's calling, and even ListenInTM on voicemail before answering the call.
- Voicemail transcription
- Setting when your phones should ring
- Caller ID
First thing you are going to want to do is to get a Google voice number
Point your browser to https://www.google.com/voice and obtain a Google voice number. Google voice allows you to pick a number in your area, and it will try to get one suited to your needs. Just make sure you pick a number you like because changing your number costs $10
The next thing you are going to want to do is set up your contacts. This is done by clicking Contacts on the left hand side of the account and then adding them. You can also add contacts via a .csv or vcard file. Setting this up will help you customize your callers experience later.
Next set up your Voicemail Greetings you can set a few.
I suggest you set up 3 types of greetings
- A general voicemail greeting.
- A special voicemail greeting.
- A voicemail that is personalized to the person callings name (you can set as many of these as you like).
If I may ask a favor to all the people out there, please please please do not put a music background of the voicemail that crap is annoying.
Last thing you want to set up is the phone numbers that this number forwards too, this is located in the Settings/Voice settings. (The advanced features are covered in the “Setting when your phones should ring” section)
Customize your callers' experience:
After setting up all the above things you should, then set up how each contact is handled.
So let’s say you want Contact A to get the “personalized” voicemail greeting.
Go Contacts/ click on the contact you want and then choose Edit Google Voice Settings.
This will give you the following options:
When this contact calls you:
This is where you can set which phone(s) you would like this contact to reach or you have the option of sending this contact directly to voicemail. You can also block a person from calling you with this option.
When this contact goes to voicemail:
This is where you can set one of the greetings we set up earlier.
Enable Call Screening for this contact?
This is an important option.
If yes it “Announces caller's name” (it will ask them prior to sending the call to you) and gives answering options e.g. answer the call or send to voicemail. You can also listen in on the Voicemail as well and decide to pick it up.
If no it “Directly connects calls when phones are answered”
Voicemail transcription
I don’t think any service has perfected this yet, but this saves times it allows you to NOT listen to a voice mail and just read it.
Setting when your phones should ring
During the part when you set up the phones you want the Google voice line to forward to you can also set up and change when it will ring. This feature is called ring schedule, and it will give you a few options that let you set up custom Do not ring during this time.
Caller ID
In the Calls setting you can set what number is displayed on the phone it rings. You have two choices, display the callers number or Display the google number. Setting it to the second option will prevent someone from knowing who is calling you. I guess I should have wrote this earlier for Tiger Woods, that advice alone would have saved him 750 million.
This ends the guide if you have any questions feel free to hit me up on twitter @soulpsuperstar.
