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One Phone Number for Life?One Phone Number for Life?
The BrainYard - Where collaborative minds congregate.
2 Min Read
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I've been a user of GrandCentral for a little over a year now and I must say that I'm hooked. For those not familiar with GrandCentral or any of the other phone management services available, think of it as Web2.0 meets telecom. These tool offers a ton of control over your phones and will really open your eyes to how our desktop and cell phone systems should work. I started using the service because I was bouncing between two offices, working from home, carrying a mobile phone, and going crazy in the process. My problem was that:A) I couldn't remember my phone numbers
B) People didn't know which number to call me on
C) I had multiple voicemail boxes to manage, each with their own logins, menus and commands
Something had to give. With GrandCentral (recently acquired by Google) I got one phone number, one voicemail box and complete, and simple, web-based control over it. I got to decide exactly when and where that phone number rang, could customize settings based on caller groups and could respond to a voicemail message without having to write down the number. I was in telephone nirvana. But while I'm a huge fan of this service, being a customer has raised a few interesting questions for me.
One of the selling features of GrandCentral is "one phone number for life." Is that a good thing? If I quit my job today, do I really want those work phone calls tomorrow? I suppose I would if I'm in sales or another career where relationships are key. But for many people their next job may be entirely unrelated and they don't want these calls. How much time will they spend playing human switchboard for their previous employer? Which leads to another question. If I'm running a business, what should my policy be around tools like GrandCentral? What happens when my star salesperson walks out the door with his phone number and my customers along with it? Like many web 2.0 tools, understanding exactly how these tools fit in a business environment is a challenge. But as is also the case with many web 2.0 tools, sometimes their functionality and ease of use are simply to hard to resist.
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