When you speak into your phone, do not speak directly into the mouthpiece. If you do, you will likely create “popping” and “hissing” noises when you pronounce words that have the letters “p” or “s” in them. Be sure to speak across the mouthpiece and not directly into it.
Hi, you've reached Sally Smith at Example Realty. We specialize in helping you find commercial properties in Northern New Jersey. I'm unavailable to take your call, but will call you back by this time tomorrow if you leave a message with your name and telephone number. You can also email [email protected] or tweet @SallyS.

A lot of small businesses set up a 13, 1300 or 1800 number to appear more professional, but that’s only the first step. Using a business phone service gives you a range of advantages over your standard landline, including the ability to: Set your business hours and record different voice greetings to align with a particular time of day or year. Set up an automated response, add department extensions to route the calls, and more. Have multiple users on the phone number via call overflow regardless of their location. For ideas on what to include in your voicemail greeting, see our blog on examples of professional voicemail greetings.
Users often don’t invest enough time into their messages, resulting in incomplete, unprofessional, or otherwise under-whelming greetings. Sure, crafting a greeting doesn’t sound all that complicated; however, there are a number of pitfalls users can fall into—i.e. informality, terseness, sincerity, lack of direction, and more. While none of these sound too catastrophic, they are often interrelated. As such, they tend to worsen any problem. For example, humor can cause informality, worsen ambiguity, and weaken sincerity. That being said, users should strive to avoid ALL these pitfalls.