Grand Central aquisition could mean features for small businesses

July 5th, 2007 · 12 Comments

Some of you may recall my November post about using Grand Central to track calls from internet marketing campaigns. I made a suggestion to Grand Central several months ago on how to improve their service. Now that Google has aquired Grand Central, here are some of my suggestions that I think will be put into effect.

-ability to place a ‘Click to Call’ button on your own website
-ability to track calls from an Adwords campaign (and hopefully cross channel tracking eventually)
-more widespread ability to use click to call direct from an Adwords Ad

Most of these features have been available through various services for a while. However they were not all available together at a reasonable rate small businesses could afford. This acquisition by Google I assume will provide solutions for all my suggestions and more. This will greatly enhance the ability for small businesses to support and track telephone communication sparked by internet marketing campaigns.

If anyone would like a free Grand Central account(now by invitation only) just leave a message in the comments. Those linking to me first will receive priority of course

12 responses so far ↓

Ben // Jul 6th 2007 at 7:40 am

This is just the type of service I have been looking for. As you said, these features are sprinkled throughout other apps, but no one app has them all. When Google does have them in place, these features will become the norm on small ecommerce websites. And now I will shamelessly ask for an invite :).
Christopher // Jul 6th 2007 at 10:40 pm

This looks really really awesome
I too would really like an invite - please
Thanks
Athavan Rogers // Jul 9th 2007 at 9:25 am

Looks Cool.
Competing with Microsofts aquisition od TellMe
Can I get an invite Please
Bill Binnig // Jul 9th 2007 at 4:33 pm

Although they’ve had the capability inhouse to do what you suggest for some time. It will be great if this acquisiton sparks them to get it done sooner than later. Click to call from SERPs and adwords is a natural. Check out http://www.jaduka.com for FREE Click-and-Connect buttons for your website (or your email or your display/banner ads or your .pdfs, .docs, etc).
Paul // Jul 9th 2007 at 11:14 pm

This is kinda of inappropriate.. but do u have some GrantCentral invite?
mike // Jul 9th 2007 at 11:18 pm

Hey Pail,
How about a link, then its all yours
Todd Casey // Jul 10th 2007 at 6:19 am

Hey Mike,

Thank you for your kind offer.

I’d love a GrandCentral invite.
Rob // Jul 11th 2007 at 11:52 am

Hey Mike -
I’d love to get an invite if you’ve got some left. Been scouring for one for a couple days now and wasn’t lucky enough to be in the first batch of invites from the GC site…

rob
Todd // Jul 12th 2007 at 7:59 am

Mike,

I’m looking for an alternative to my Skype account and would like to give GrandCentral a try. I’d appreciate an invite. Thanks.

Todd
Jacob Steenhagen // Jul 17th 2007 at 11:40 am

I’m sure they’re gone by now, but if you have any invites left, I’d love to get one.

Thanks,
Jake
mike // Jul 17th 2007 at 11:48 am

Sorry jake,
I am all out. contact one of the dudes in the comments and they should be able to hook you up
Joakim Ivarsson // Aug 20th 2007 at 5:22 am

In my job I receive a lot of phone calls, 50% of which are about simple matters that could be answered by an FAQ. So it would be lovely with a Grand Central feature that enable me to record an automatic reply that asks people to dial 1 for information on this, dial 2 for information on that, or dial 9 to talk to me personally. (Obviously I would disable this function for family and friends, so that they would reach me directly.)