I’d bet good money that most voicemails never get played. Instead, they just sit there serving as extra “missed call” notifications, letting you know to call or text back whoever bothered to leave you the message in the first place.
So, make your goal to find common ground, and share how knowledgeable and experienced you are, no matter who you are calling. You shouldn’t brag about your success, but there is a time and place for others to know your success. That is the key to leaving voicemail messages that get returned!
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I always end voicemails with my phone number. The reasoning? First, it's his cue to wrap up. It keeps him from rambling and gives the prospect a clear call to action: Call him back.
Nobody wants to play phone tag. Skip the back and forth by explicitly telling the caller to leave their name, number, and the best day(s) and time(s) to reach them. Your clients will appreciate you not wanting to waste their time.
Remember that the speed of your words can negatively impact your message as well. "If you have to rush to get a message into the amount of time allotted for a voicemail message, you’re saying too much," DeCesare advises. "Say less and slow down. You want them to feel that talking to you will make their lives less stressful. If you're frantic and mumbling on the phone, it gives them a foreshadowing of what it will be like to work with you."
I always end voicemails with my phone number. The reasoning? First, it's his cue to wrap up. It keeps him from rambling and gives the prospect a clear call to action: Call him back.
14. “Thanks for giving us a call! We promise it’s never a bad time for [company name], but you’ve reached us after-hours. Please leave us your name, number and the best time to reach you and we’ll give you a call when we are open.” Let’s face it, you’re not always open. Yet that doesn’t mean you don’t want to help your caller. Let them know you’ll call them right back when you’re open again.
We are hoping this can be done before the outgoing message is accidentally deleted.
Let’s say you wanted to call someone and make an inquiry and that person doesn’t pick up their phone. To pick up the phone is to answer the phone. It’s a phrasal verb.
Rehearse or write down your message before recording it. Remember that old saying “practice makes perfect?” It’s certainly true when it comes to creating an electronic greeting. The more you’ve rehearsed, the easier the message will be to restate. If you don’t have time to practice, writing down the greeting before recording it – and then reading it aloud from the paper – may help you stay focused on the correct wording.
Logging in after leaving a message: After you get the greeting for another user's voice mailbox, you can press #R to log into your voice mailbox. Press *R immediately or leave a message and then press *R. This feature is useful for long distance or pay calls because you can leave and get messages with one phone call.
However, it’s awkward to just jump in without any context, so a very quick introduction followed by your question is the best option: Hi Erica, this is Ryan at Company X.
So, make your goal to find common ground, and share how knowledgeable and experienced you are, no matter who you are calling. You shouldn’t brag about your success, but there is a time and place for others to know your success. That is the key to leaving voicemail messages that get returned!
So my new Voicemail message would be something like: Hi, this is Milena. Please know I check my Voicemail once per week. You may leave me a message here and I will call you back later in the week or preferably, you can send me an email to [email protected] and I will reply to you asap. Thank you
Marcus is a freelance tech writer/editor with a focus on succinctly explaining consumer devices and their software. His previous work has been published on MakeUseOf where he covered everything from iOS to Git and UI design. Sign up for the iGeeksBlog newsletter! Get a daily feature article & more from iGeeksBlog!
11. "Hi, you've reached [company]. Unfortunately, we're currently unavailable. But we want to talk to you — so please leave your name and number, as well as your reason for calling, and someone will call back ASAP."
Does leaving a voicemail message create performance anxiety for you? If it does, you probably are a millennial. There's good news and bad news about this. The good news is that you are early in your career, with lots of opportunities to make a positive difference in your world.