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.
The fastest and easiest way to program and record the automated attendant feature of your phone system is to write a script on a word processing program. Select a person to record the script who has a friendly voice, someone who can speak without stuttering or hesitating and can pronounce and annunciate each word and name clearly.
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Include Basic Information: Your voicemail greeting should include basic information such as your hours of operation and location. This will help you to screen out calls during office hours, and also unnecessary voicemail inquiries.
You don’t want to answer calls 24/7 (unless you’re serving clients globally and there’s an expectation of 24/7 support). If you’re unavailable during specific hours of the day, use the voicemail examples below for after-hours business calls.
As the odds of receiving a call back from your voicemail message are already low, you need to be very specific about what you say in your voicemail to give you the greatest chance of getting a call back. What you absolutely do NOT want to do is make yourself sound like a salesperson making a cold call. Instead, you want to sound like a very confident business colleague who deserves the respect of getting a call back.
There is one very important last step. Return all of your calls as soon as possible. Prompt, professional callbacks, even if you then must leave a message, get you off on the right step toward a job interview.
Make sure your voicemail status is set to On. Set your greetings: Standard Greeting: Select the greeting that you just created. This will be the main greeting that callers will hear when they are transferred to your voicemail. Alternate Greeting: You can also set an alternate greeting to switch to when you are on vacation or in a meeting. By
A word of warning: These greetings will not do you any favors if you're in the midst of a job hunt or work in a conservative industry. Always remember your target personas. If there's a chance they won't appreciate your sense of humor, opt for a straightforward greeting instead.
Auto-attendant scripts are easy to set up, but they’re not always easy to write. You’ll need a clear voice with high-quality sound to give your phone system a touch of professionality. Consider hiring a professional voice artist for this task.
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
If you leave me a message that includes your name, telephone number and reason for calling, I will return your call when I get back. You have reached Jim Smith. I will be out of the office until Feb. 14. If you would like to leave a message after the tone, I will call you back when I return.
And be sure your email is as impactful as your call — You can use these essential email tools to make sure your cold email pitch is as perfect as your first voicemail outreach.
Hello, it’s obvious you have bad timing, because nobody is home. Please leave your name, telephone number, and a brief message in a voice similar to mine, and your call will be returned as soon as humanly possible.
Insurance agents have to deal with large numbers of clients almost all through the year. So, they are extremely busy and cannot take calls of clients. For them resorting to voicemail messages become inevitable. Here is one instance of VOIP phone service for businesses like this:
You don’t have to spell out every single thing that you think they might want to know. Have some faith that your callers will be able to figure things out on their own. Be natural but informative.
8. Morgan Freeman Shares His Voice for Voicemail Greetings. Morgan Freeman is known for his voice so much that he was asked to play the voice and image of God in Bruce Almighty.
If you want your business’s first impression to be a positive one, improve your business voicemail greeting. You want your greeting to be such that it matches your business’s good image.