| The answer to this
question depends on the business you're in.
Before considering the "Google
Voice question" though, ask the similar "Craigslist
question". Is Craigslist good for your business? That answer is certainly
"Yes" if you own a business that recruits employees through classified
advertisements. The answer is a resounding "No" if you own a newspaper
that survives on classified ad revenue.
 
Ten years ago the owners of the LA Times & the Chicago
Tribune would likely have laughed at the idea of Craig Newmark's Internet
"bulletin board" Craigslist.com putting them out of business. If they were
laughing then, they're certainly
not laughing now.
Business Telecom Pop-Quiz: Craigslist is to
newspaper classified advertising revenue in the same way as Google Voice
is to ______________ revenue?
Now Google is set to enter the telephone business with
the seemingly innocuous invitation to "do
more with your calls ... for free". What does Google want to
help the harried business person "do"? Only everything they would probably
want to if they a magic wand that works on business telecommunications
like:
1. Have your cell, desk & home
office phone
all ring at once...
2. Screen calls like you do with a home
answering
machine ...
3. Store all your voice mails (with transcriptions) in
your email
inbox
4.
Record calls...
5.
Switch phones
during a call...
6. Have
conference
calls... And a whole bunch of
other stuff
... for free!
 "Wait a
minute Batman, except for the 'free part', aren't those the same really
cool, whiz-bang big business phone features we're supposed to get in that
new and expensive VoIP phone system you want for the Bat Cave?
"Why yes, Robin. You're absolutely correct, old
friend! Those are the exact new features we've been looking at for some
time now and looking to pay really big bucks for at that."
"Something tells me the Joker must be involved in
some diabolical phone trick that may just involve the wallet of every
business owner in Gotham City. We better get the police chief involved in
this right away!"
So the the question of the year for everyone that lives
or dies by the amount of money spent on business phone bills (or Bat Cave
business phone systems) is, "One really big company is giving away a
really useful service for free at the same time a lot of other smaller
companies are charging for the same service - what does it all mean?"
"What does it all mean?" indeed! Had the LA Times, the
Chicago Tribune and all the other newspapers answered the same question
better ten years ago they would likely not have the "Craigslist Hammer
Headache" that they all have today.
Separating the phone number from the phone service
enhances phone choice
By historically tying a business owner's phone number to
their business phone service, during the term of the business phone
service contract, phone companies have always been able to exercise
monopoly-like power over both the phone price the business owner pays and
the phone service the business owner gets. Sure the business owner can
switch at the end of their term, but during the term of the phone contract
they pretty much take what the phone company gives them.
(More recently, new VoIP or IP-PBX phone systems
provided all the desired fancy phone services but not before a fairly
expensive new phone system was installed.)
By being able to finally acquire their phone numbers
from one company and their phone service or phone equipment from another,
business owners are now able to command commodity-like price freedom over
the actual dial tone needed to make and receive phone calls. Even if the
dial tone fails that's in between the phone number and the voice mail,
communication can still take place via email and back-up dial tone
options.
What should business owners do?
1. Let go of the idea that only
expensive business phone services or equipment systems can provide for
professional and efficient staff communications
2. Make an "idea list" of the ways your phone service
can enhance your profits
3. Think of phones, phone numbers, dial tone,
employees, voice mail, email and job tasks as separate puzzle pieces that
can go together any way that promotes profitability
4. See your business phones not as an "equipment
system" that goes on a wall in a closet so much as a "business
application" like an accounting package that goes on your local or wide
area data network
4. Decide how much ownership, security and control you
need over your employee's phone communications
5. Piece the phone part puzzle pieces together the way
that best serves your business
6. Find a business telecommunications consultant or
broker that will bring together for you the service providers needed to
economically bring your custom phone puzzle to reality
What should telecom solution and service providers
do?
1. Assume that business
customers both big and small will get sucked into the vacuum created by a
legitimate competitor (Google) offering a valuable solution (Google Voice)
for free - especially in a down economy. (Craigslist was not a fluke and
they are still much smaller than Google!)
2. As Google is not known for human-to-human customer
service (an assumed but diminishing expectation in the phone service
business) figure out how to deliver the promise of Google Voice at a
reasonable price point but with "nice humans" and customer service that
actually works.
3. Let go of business customers that are happy with the
"free, open and easy" telecom solution offered by Google Voice if you have
no other solutions to offer
4. Focus on customers where "free, open and easy" might
be a bad thing like in the medical field where HIPAA is always a concern
or in a competitive business environment where it's easy for employees to
take their "Rolodex" and the business owner's customers out the door when
the employee quits or gets fired.
5. See yourself less as a telecom solutions consultant
and more as a business applications consultant
6. Signup as a Google Voice customer as soon as it's
available to better understand how and when it's appropriate to use and
recommend. Other similar services you should be familiar with would
include toktumi
(includes free inbound 800 usage and
also sold by Dell & Staples),
Phone.com,
Onebox,
eVoice,
my1voice and
FreedomVoice.
True Business Case Study
Last year I sold a new IP-PBX phone system to a
California law firm with nine locations spread throughout California. We
sold them an Allworx
IP-PBX over a competing Shoretel or Avaya system both of which priced out
at least 50% more. After price, their main criteria for buying the new
phone system was to have something that tied their nine offices together
on one phone system so they could have free location to location calls.
The law firm ended up getting most everything they
wanted in the phone system but two interesting things happened during the
cut-over which happened at the same time the main office was moving.
First, the new dial tone did not show up on time so the 40 law office
employees (including 15 attorneys) worked off their cell phones for almost
a week. The second thing that happened was the new system did not do that
"call announce" feature when outside callers dialed the employees direct
numbers.
The lack of the call announce feature (which they had on
their old NEC single-location phone system) drove them crazy. If the call
did not come through the main office and the live receptionist the law
office workers had to rely on caller ID to decide if they wanted to take
the call.
Learning Points
The learning points from this law office phone system
case study are 1) that even a big office can work off just their cell
phones if they need to, and 2) that business people REALLY want to know
who's calling and what they want before they invest their valuable time in
picking up the phone.
This is a big deal because most of the "technology
experts" on the Internet who have reviewed Google Voice have reviewed it
from a consumer's point of view and have given Google Voice a rather
"ho-hum" review. Within short order I predict that the big adopters of
Google Voice will be business users who are using Google Voice in
conjunction with or instead of their fancy office phone system.
Other Google Voice Reviews
1.
Google Voice Speaks of World Domination, Wired.com 3/12/9
2.
GrandCentral Reborn as Google Voice, a Suite of VoIP Services,
GigaOM.com 3/12/9
3.
Jupiter Broadcasting Review on YouTube, March 2009
4.
NY
Times Review of Google Voice, March 2009
 Is Google
Voice good for your business? Yes!
Maybe not as the specific telecom tool a business owner
will use right away so much as the paradigm changer both telecom providers
and business owners needed to change the basic
expectations they bring to the telecom negotiating table.
Starting this year business owners will feel empowered
to say to prospective telecom solution providers, "This is what I want and
this is how I want it to work and if Google Voice can do it for free you
ought to be able to do it for money and provide decent customer service!"
There's a new telecom hammer in the marketplace. Are you
going to get nailed or are you going to be a "better hammer"?
(Note: To license this content for your own
distribution contact Dan Baldwin at
Dan@TelecomAssociation.com
or call 951-251-5155) |
uniquely
positioned to serve the needs of "Top Performing Champions" as well as
TA's review of Intelisys.
