tcallan
join:2007-07-18
Clifton Park, NY
| reply to curiousNC
Re: Can someone explain Grand Central?
I'm surprised that no one talked about the big advantage of GrandCentral, the control over voicemail.
Sure it rings multiple phones, but when it does, it announces the caller and asks what you want to do 1) Take the Call, 2) Send the Call to Voicemail, 3) "Listen-in" to the caller record voicemail, and decide if you want to pick up, as you would with an answering machine, or 4) Take the call and record it.
This is the annoying part for people who just want to use GC as a regular inbound line, with their own answering machine or voicemail. But that's not what GC is for, and having to punch a key guarantees that your cell won't pick up the call, and all VM will go to GC.
That voicemail, well, that's power. You can set up greetings for groups or individual numbers, route only certain calls to ring your phones at different times, even have a "number not in service" played. VMs come to your mailbox and are filed in the web interface, easy to manage.
Sure, GrandCentral rings multiple phones, but it gives lots of options about how to answer your phone, manage callers, and store voicemails.
And then there is the part with outbound calling, free during beta, which some people even use with their cellphone, either with a "circle" calling plan or by initiating calls through the web to a phone near them, or both.
I'm sure there is more, but Grand Central is a whole lot to get your arms around in one pass. Powerful service there. |
