Moving to eVoice from Google Voice

I was a GrandCentral early adopter. I scrambled to get an invite code, and got in on the beta. Then Google bought them and converted the service to “Google Voice.” I’ve used the number for years now as my main business number. It simply forwards the calls to the numbers I’ve set up.

(Cue impending doom music)

I got a call yesterday from someone answering a job application I’d posted.  He told me he’s been trying to call all week, but that he kept intermittently getting “this number is not in service.”  He said out of 8 calls, he connected twice.  Ouch!

So, Google Voice is OUT

Searching for a Virtual PBX isn’t easy.  I spent hours looking at review sites (which mostly have outdated information), and finally bit the bullet and signed up with eVoice

So far, I am extremely impressed.  Let me tell you why I chose eVoice, and why I am more impressed than I thought I’d be.  I actually think they are underselling their service …

Why I chose eVoice over RingCentral and Google Voice

First off, I had to through Google Voice out of the running right away due to the inability to reliably answer the phone. Also because their system always requires me to hit “1″ to answer the call. I hate that, because I am usually on the cell phone, and it is a hassle to unlock the dialpad to hit “1″, so callers have often dropped before I can do it.

The base feature set of RingCentral and eVoice are very similar. If I had an iPhone, I might have gone with RingCentral because of the nice app to manage and access their voicemail.

There are tons of features in eVoice, the main ones for me are:

• Voicemail to text – this is the big one for me.  I hate voicemail because of the interruption.  But reading a transcription is so much faster and easier.  Here’s where eVoice actually undersells themselves.  They will not only send the transcription to (multiple) email addresses for you, they’ll also send it via text message!  That’s the fastest, easiest way for me.  A winning feature all by itself.
• Optional “auto receptionist”.  For now, I only have one extension, so it would be ridiculous to make people listen to a message and then hit “1″, the only extension, to contact me.  eVoice, unlike many Hosted PBX systems, allows me to just send the message along without the interruption.  But later, if I add more extensions I can enable the receptionist.  That’s user friendly, and bodes well for the service.
• 6 Month Free Trial.  Wow, that’s a nice free trial period.  If they don’t pan out, I am only out the cost of a new run of business cards.

Technorati Tags: hosted pbx, pbx, virtual pbx, virtual phone number

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