1. Share basic information: “Hello! You’ve reached the voicemail of [your name], [your job title]. I’m currently either away from my desk or on the other line.
Your voicemail greeting is the first introduction to your office — what kind of impression do you want to leave?
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My friend Tom at Bottomline Technologies was running a sales team making thousands of phone calls a week, developing the art of the sales voicemail.. Despite all their best efforts, his sales reps were only connecting with prospects 3% of the time since 97% of the time, they had no choice but to leave a voicemail. In a typical week, those voicemails could generate a grand total of one returned
So, I finally did it. Here’s my process for developing a professional voicemail message in 10 steps:
9. “Hey, it’s [your name] at [your company] – thanks for giving me a call! I can’t wait to chat. Just leave your name, number and I’ll call you back as soon as I have the chance. Better yet, send me a text with the best time to reach you and the reason for your call. Looking forward to hearing from you.” Text communication is becoming much more relevant now. Direct your caller to text you in case they have a question you can answer easier via text. Who knows, they might prefer text messages to phone calls too.
For example, a message like, “Hi, this is Jim. You know what to do.” Well, not everyone is going to know what to do—i.e. they won’t leave you inclusive information. Additionally, they may not leave you a message at all. Aside from this, humor can again be detrimental to your message, this time lending itself to ambiguity and costing you clarity. For example, if a message read, “Hi this is Jim, sorry I can’t answer your call right now. Please leave your name and number and I’ll call you as soon as I can, but you already knew that right? Do I need to tell you what to do?” This is worse than the previous example as this is confusing and can also come across as rude and unprofessional. Complicating a greeting with phrasing like this is sure to cause some harm. e. Ignoring Personality & Identity: Don’t use computer generated greetings. Some users leave default messages (‘you’ve reached the voicemail box of 777-777-777, please leave a message). Believe it or not, even this can cause problems. Callers may be unsure if the voicemail box belongs to you; therefore, they don’t leave a message. Also, some may even be uncomfortable leaving information through a message in a nameless voice message box. As such, impersonalization can cause ambiguity, which again can hurt the effectiveness of your voice message system. This doesn’t mean you have to make an elaborate greeting if you don’t want to, just insert your voice and name so at least callers know they’re calling the right person.
Recording a business voicemail greeting is not the same as recording a personalized message for your cell phone. You’ll want to maintain a level of professionalism while also connecting with your customers. Before you start recording, keep these tips in mind to leave a good impression on potential clients.
If you don’t feel confident and prepared, how are you supposed to leave a voicemail that gets a reply? When it comes to how to leave a professional voicemail that’ll get a response, we’ve got you covered.
The reality is you’ll never know when the perfect time for your prospect, but you can be smart about when not to call.
You may clean your voicemail box by following the instructions given by your service provider.
10Hello, this is [your name]. I’m probably at home just avoiding someone I dislike. A funny way of telling someone you’re avoiding them without sounding offensive or having to pick their calls. Please speak very slowly, make it short, make it sweet, and I’ll deliver the message to them. Using other household appliances as stand-ins for the message center is cute and funny. This voicemail will warn callers not to bring drama, so you can save yourself the trouble of having to hear a message that was about to spoil your day.
I began my career with over 15 years in sales and sales training. Among other roles, I was a national sales trainer and a branch manager for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
Practice your spiel so you can speak with authority. This lets the caller know how confident, qualified, and prepared you are. The goal is to sound like you’ve been doing this for years, not a few minutes.
Your voicemail is important. This is probably one of the first things that will give your Placement Consultant and/or employer their first impression of you. As such, it is essential that you make sure your voicemail message is as professional as possible. When going through the application and interview process you should avoid these situations:
Below are examples of what to say in a voicemail message. Whether recording the message for a personal phone or a business line, these ideas will help. Using humor is appropriate in some situations, but humor should be avoided in situations including serious businesses where reputations could be damaged or people could become upset.
16Hey, could you come up with some cute voicemail greetings, I’m out. Can you just leave your suggestion, after the tone? This voicemail engages your caller, challenging them to come up with funny voicemail messages, while they wait to leave their messages after the tone.
Some people try to get really fancy with their voice mail greetings and they will put the current date on their message. This requires you to update your voice mail greeting daily. This level of customization is completely unnecessary and often leads to problems when the user forgets to update the actual date itself. However, updating your outgoing voice mail message to reflect a particular season or holiday can be a nice touch as long as you remember to change it accordingly.