Getting Google Voice and RingCentral to play nice
Today I decided to take another whack at getting my local business number, currently run by Google Voice, to forward into my new 800 number at RingCentral. I never managed to make it work in the past, but today everything changed. So want to do the same? Here's how:
Update 5/31/11: Before I let you read the instructions on how to accomplish this, I should tell you that after using this for a while, I consider it to be a far less than optimal solution. For reasons unknown to me, sometimes Google picks up the line, plays its voicemail message, and records the voicemail in its own inbox. Ideally, everything should always be handled by Ring Central, but I suppose if Ring Central doesn't answer fast enough, or there is some kind of delay... then there are problems. Ideally, you should really just port the number to Ring Central and pay the extra few dollars per month. Proceed at your own risk.
- Backup everything first. Make notes of your current settings in Google Voice and RingCentral for when you are done, or in case there is a problem or you ever wish to go back to how things were. Also, try to do this when your phone isn't likely to be ringing.
- Log into RingCentral and setup the forwarding number. Go to "My Settings" > "Account Summary" and under the header of "My Numbers Forwarded to RingCentral" setup your Google Voice number. There is no need to call any phone company or do any of that stuff, just type in the number and pretend you followed the rest of the directions.
- Temporarily, we are going to setup RingCentral to instantly forward to your phone, without any menu's or similar stuff. This is so you can get the verification code from Google. Still under "My Settings" go to "Answering Rules." Select business hours or after hours based on what time it is for you and when you are going to set this up. Set your answering mode to "Ring a number only." Continue like normal setting this up to ring a phone you're at.
- Go to google voice. Under Settings for Google Voice, go to phones, add a new phone, and enter your RingCentral number. Proceed with the instructions they show you to receive the verification call, get the code, and enter it on your screen. The RingCentral number should be verified before you continue. If you have problems with this (like going to voicemail or not getting to your phone in time), make sure you set RingCentral to go directly to your phone. No delays, no extensions, no departments, no voicemail, no nothing. When the call comes in, it has to make your phone ring instantly.
- Undo everything we did in step 2 now that Google Voice has verified your control of your RingCentral number. You're ok to put departments, extensions, full call control, and everything else back now. Setup RingCentral however you want or however you had it before.
- Back in Google Voice settings, go to the calls tab and turn call screening off. Set caller ID to display the callers number. Save things, then go to the phones tab in the Google Voice settings and uncheck all phones except your RingCentral phone.
- Test things out. Calls to Google Voice should now get forwarded to RingCentral and handled by its rules. Voicemail won't work at Google Voice anymore, but that is probably for the best. You can still setup SMS messages to forward to email or any cell phones on your account. You can also still block callers in Google Voice or setup calling groups to make some contacts ring your phone instead of Google Voice. That said, if RingCentral offers the same feature, you may wish to setup things there instead of in Google Voice.
- Don't blame me if things go wrong. I'm just telling you what worked for me, and I wrote this on November 11, 2010... So things could have changed since this was written.
Customer service done right
It's not often you see a company excel at customer service. I rarely walk away from interacting with a company support team feeling good about the experience or their brand. But this gem just arrived in my inbox and many companies could take note of what they did right.
Let's start with the back story. I requested a card reader from Square (www.SquareUp.com). They took some time to get out of beta and start sending the devices out, but mine finally arrived and I did a little dance, then sent some tweets about how happy I was. After that, I proceeded to run my own credit card for $1.00 to see how the process worked. It was very slick. I then proceeded to go online and refund my dollar back.
The refund email sent to the end-buyer didn't feel very slick though. In fact, I thought it was rather confusing. So I opened a ticket with the Square support guys to tell them what I thought. Here is the email I got back:
Jonathan P., Oct 17 19:43 (PDT):
Hey Scott,Did we mention that YOU are awesome? Because we should have by now. Thanks for the feedback and you are correct on every suggestion you have given us! I will forward this over to our development team and have them look into preparing something more fashioned in the direction that you are looking for.
Thank you wholeheartedly for the feedback, this is exactly what helps us make our product better for you.
Have a great day,
Jonathan P.
Square Support
I changed his last name to his last initial (and will remove it completely at Square's request). In any case, you rarely see a response of this caliber. I wish more companies responded in a similar fashion. Way to go Jonathan and Square!
Ask and you shall receive
A short note for today... "Ask and you shall receive."
Aside from the usual BS of people saying that "you can't get what you don't ask for" ... implying that you should be asking for ridiculous discounts or something, I have to admit that I find the concept of "ask and you shall receive," to be true. I say this because I recently was going through my quickbooks reminders and saw that I had over $800 in overdue invoices.
Take a minute to laugh... I know that seems like nothing to you, but it is a lot for a company that is 99% COD, and seeing a major slow down in the last week.
So after looking through it, I found a few customers never mailed a check, a few others I was supposed to send an invoice to, etc. In any case, 5 minutes later I had a short and "nice" template letter that stated that I hadn't seen the customers payment yet, and asking them to please mail a check or call to pay with a credit card.
The best part... Of the 5 companies I faxed it to, 1 has already paid... no less than 2 hours later. Now to see what happens tomorrow.