The road warrior is all too familiar with the problem of maintaining contact and remaining available to clients, sales leads, and the boss, which could be the wife or husband, while on the road. There are several good options to make this all happen seemlessly.
There is a pay service and a free service. First the pay service. This service is called PhoneTag. I say limited because it has fewer features than the free service.
PhoneTag manages all your voicemail for a flat fee, transcribes the voicemail into text, and forwards the text by SMS or to your email account. This allows you to read voicemail while in a meeting, at a conference, or wherever without your phone ringing.
The other service is Google Voice, which is totally free, which is the service I use. Google Voice does the same thing as PhoneTag, and a lot more. Let me summarize a few features:
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Allows you to use one number that forwards calls to all your phones at once
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Records voices mails that can be listened to with your phone, or online through your web browser
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Transcribes voicemail that can be read online, forwarded via SMS, or forwarded to your email.
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Calls can even come in via Google Chat.
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Customize call groups to filter calls with individualized greetings for friends, family, coworkers, clients, and more.
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You can even make cheap voice calls to places like China for $0.02/min. I’d rather use Skype for calling even though I haven’t compared the call quality between the two.
One of the best features is that Google Voice is now available as an iPhone app. Now you can make free phone calls, send free SMS text messages, and more on your iPhone, which will now be available on the Verizon network, as well as AT&T.
If you’re worried about reliability both services seem to be equal in that regard. As always, choose what is best for your needs.
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