Let me start by saying that Google Voice is not easy to configure. For most business owners, what you want is the phone to ring a few times so that you have a chance to either pick up or let it go to voicemail. Then, you want a customizable company voicemail recording to greet your prospective customer instead of the default system message.
If this is the configuration you want, then record your custom voicemail greeting and select the greeting file under the “Voicemail & Text” tab. Now you are ready to go to the “Calls” tab and follow the steps below —
1) Turn on Call Screening. The KEY is to UNCHECK the box for “Ask unknown callers to say their name.” If you leave that checked, then the customer will know you are using Google Voice because you get the annoying message — “The Google subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable” — which makes your company seem less professional.
2) For “Caller ID (incoming),” select the option “Display my Google Voice number.” This options allows you to distinguish personal calls from your business-related calls because you will see the phone number of your company come up on your mobile phone instead of the phone number of the caller.
3) For “Caller ID (outgoing),” select “Don’t change anything.”
4) For “Do Not Disturb,” leave it unchecked.
5) For “Missed Calls,” I like to select the option for “Send missed calls to my email” because I get the phone number of the missed call in my email inbox for easier follow-up. I keep “Place missed calls in the inbox” unchecked.
6) I also like to keep “Global Spam Filtering” checked because fighting spam always sounds like a good idea.
