-Hi, this is ______. I’m sorry I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave a message, and then wait by your phone until I call you back.
For phone greetings to be successful, they need to be: Crisp. A crisp, clear voice goes a long way. The message needs to be clearer than glass. No shuffling papers or dogs barking in the background. **Professional. **Your phone greeting needs to sound like you're a real company, not a random person answering their cell phone. Thought-out.

A business answering machine greeting is a message recorded on the voicemail or answering machine of a company. Since this message is going to be heard by at least some of your customers, you should be sure to keep the message professional. For the most part, you should not create a message that is silly or funny, but instead provide important and useful information in a way that is professional and fairly fast. You can, however, use the message as a quick opportunity to include a brief statement about a particular service you offer such as “Thank you for calling The House of Pies, home of the world famous zucchini and artichoke pie.”
Length – if your callers typically wait 2 minutes at a time, then at least 2 minutes of programming should be the goal. The idea is to ensure the callers don’t hear repeated messages every time they call. A typical on-hold message is 4-8 minutes in length.