GotVMail update
By DavidFisher. Filed in Uncategorized |Tags: GotVMail, grandcentral, voip
We decided to test GotVMail at Jazkarta, but we did notice one major difference between GotVMail and GrandCentral.
With GrandCentral all incoming calls are free. If you use one of their services to call out, you pay.
With GotVmail, you pay for minutes on incoming calls, and don’t really use it for outgoing calls. Additionally (and the main reason we are using it) is for a phone tree for people not in the same office.
I still need to sit down with both an evaluate more.
When you have the time, can you elaborate on GotVmail’s phone tree capabilities.
How easy is it to record longish info messages with lots of sub-choices
(For Directions press 1, for voting info press 2, etc.)
With more sub-tree stuff below that.
Is each choice a paid extension, even if all one wants to do is to provide a lot of 24×7 information?
Thanks
Grandcentral and GotVmail differ. The first one is for incoming calls and its a forwarder. However the second one is a toll-free and pbx service.
I have evaluated lot of services including GotVmail, RingCentral (www.ringcentral.com), 800PBX (800pbx.com) and uReach (www.ureach.com). None of these offer sub-choices. We also needed them. However, I shorted on the third player as it offered some customization for sub-trees. Frankly, it was just a personal choice!
They all offer free extensions depending on the plan.
I needed the same same thing as Mark: slightly more complex call trees. This isn’t possible with Grandcentral or GotVMail. In addition, GotVMail’s high per minute costs is not very good for longish messages. I’m using CallButler http://www.callbutler.com that is an excellent, incredibly robust full-featured PBX. I run it on my own PC, however, they do have a hosted version as well. Adding basic menu options is super simple. You can easily add more complex trees using their inTELiscript tools. I actually use this to pull CRM and QuickBooks data for customer self-service applications. Very cool!
GotVMail and RingCentral are “Virtual PBXs” or, as I call them, “Phone Systems without wires”. They are geared for very small (1 or 2 persons) to 100-employee companies. (You can read my review of RingCentral, which I recommend, here: http://small-business-phone.com/?p=4.
GrandCentral (another great service that I also use) is really a (Very good) ‘Voicemail on steroids’ application that is meant for one person. Unlike RingCentral and GotVmail, GrandCentral does not provide you with an auto-attendant, multiple extensions, etc.
-J.B. Malik
jbmalik@small-business-phone.com
http://small-business-phone.com/?p=4
I use a service called TeleCenter http://www.GetTeleCenter.com. They have the sub-menuing systems plus many other cool features.