In an effort to completely automate my business (or at least greatly reduce my work), I’m trying out the process of integrating Podio with Google Voice. I want to automatically have a lead created when I get a voicemail.
It’s a simple process and requires no other services (i.e. zapier, globiflow,etc). You basically just forward your Google Voice messages to your Podio App’s email address…Yup it has one. Actually each App has a separate email address.
Below I’ll walk you through the process of setting this up, validating the email address and taking a look at a Voicemail record that was created.
Video Walk Through
In this video I show you all the steps required to forward your Google voicemails into Podio. It’s a simple process but there are a few small details that may not be obvious.
Podio App Email & Setup
To get the email address you’ll be forwarding your Google Voice voicemail to you’ll go into your your Apps Settings by…
- Go to Podio Workspace where your CRM is.
- Open the APP where you want to voicemail to be forwarded too. (Mine goes to my Properties App).
- Click the App’s Settings Wrench Icon
- Find and click on Email to App
The Email to App window will be opened to you know. There are actually 3 email addresses presented to you. You’ll want to grab the one at the bottom that I have highlighted.
- Using your mouse, highlight the email address text
- Right-Click with your mouse and choose Copy
The App’s email address is now in your clipboard.
I suggest you do one more thing before before going to Google Voice. That is to tell Podio which fields you want the Subject text and Body text of the email coming from Google Voice to go.
You’ll do this by clicking on the Control how your subject and body maps to your app link at the bottom of the Email to App window.
A new window will appear showing you a Mail Merge type of setup. You will see a list of all your App’s Fields with a drop down next to it.
- Find the field you want to place the Email Subject in. Select Subject from the drop down.
- Find the field you want to place the Email Body (transcribed Voicemail message + link) into. Then select Email Body from the drop down.
I put the information in the Address and Voicemail Message fields.
Now that we have everything setup in Podio and have gotten the App email address, we can go to Google Voice.
Google Voice Settings
Go to Google Voice and then browse to the GV Settings area. To do this you’ll click on the Gear icon in the upper right. Then click on Settings.
The Google Voice settings window will open onto the Phones tab. What you are looking for now is on the Voicemail & Text tab.
From there you’ll be looking at the Voicemail Notifications info. I forget what this looks like if you don’t have an email address there already. Either way you’ll click Add a new email address.
The Manage Account Information page will come up. I don’t know what the Nickname field really does but I put in Podio. Now to add that Podio App Email address…
- Paste the Podio Email Address into the field at the bottom. (Right click in field and select Paste or press CTRL+V on keyboard)
- Press Save
Verification
Google Voice will now send you a verification email. Like me you are probably wondering how you are going to verify the Podio email address. No Worries…the notification email will actually create a new record in your Podio App like this…
Click on the record to view it’s details. Scroll to the field that you selected to get the Email Body. Click the verification link in the text.
You are all set and ready to go. Nothing else to do besides wait for your next voicemail.
New Voicemail
Sit back and watch as your Google Voice voicemails will now be sent to your Podio App. Let me show you what they will actually look like.
The bottom two (highlighted) records are new voicemails I got today from my Google Voice number. The subject reads New Voicemail from <callers number> at <time of call>. The transcribed voicemail (+ link to audio) is placed in my Voicemail Message field.
Here is what it looks like in my voicemail message field.
When you click on the Audio link in the text it will bring you to Google Voice to play the message. The good part about this is that anyone who has access to this Podio App Item can hear the audio. They don’t have to have access to my Google Voice Account.
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My Thoughts
Setting this process up does save me some time and a few clicks. That’s what it is all about right? With that said I don’t really get the warm and fuzzies with this process though.
I still have to go into the Podio record, click the audio link to hear the message and manually enter in the data. I only get a few phone calls a week so this really isn’t taking up to much of my time. However I still can’t get to this right away…meaning that I can’t forward the lead info to my partners as soon as i would like.
The ideal scenario here is to have a Virtual Assistant who could do this for me. Not ready to do that just yet though.
Bonus Content!
With time being such an issue when starting up a real estate investing business, I figured I would try and save you some. I put together a list of my 10 most favorite tips and tools related to Podio that I have discovered. Knowing what is out there and what Podio is capable of is a great start to saving time.<br><br>
In the list I put together, I tried to give you examples on how I use each tool. I don’t go into detail on exactly how to implement the tools (If you would like me to send me an email at scott@strugglinginvestor.com). My goal was to give you ideas and examples.<br><br>
Let’s get to the list!
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