If wading through voicemail messages isn’t your idea of fun, you may want to steer the people to other ways to reach you. For example, many people leave their cellular numbers. Great in emergencies, but watch out, because many times you are out of range or your cell phone is off, so the caller gets ANOTHER voicemail system.
There's no doubt about it -- leaving a good sales voicemail is hard. And even if you do record a well-crafted message, do prospects actually listen to them, or take the time to call you back? Not usually.
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For example, if you are planning to go on vacation for two weeks, make sure you update your voicemail greeting stating how long you’ll be out of the office when you’ll be back — and who can be contacted in your absence.
Use call answering rules to determine what happens when a caller reaches your voice mail. For example, if you have automatic replies turned on, then you could set up your rule to transfer the caller to a different number. If you have multiple rules, you can specify the order in which they are applied.
As you practice and score your sales voicemails, you’ll start to determine some best practices. Write these down, and use them as an outline for future calls. Here are a few of my best practices.
Hello, this is Joan Tracy. I’m out of the office until Tuesday, May 23rd. I’ll be sure to return your call when I get back to the office, however, if you need immediate assistance, please call my colleague Sue at 444-444-4444. Thank you.
Hello, this is Laura Brown. I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now but please leave me a brief message after the tone and I’ll be sure to return your call as soon as I can. Thank you and have a great day.
This point is more or less an extension of the point above. If you want to avoid sounding awkward and long-winded, you need to know what you're going to say — every good sales voicemail is conducted with confidence and definitive intention. The key to delivering on both is having well-prepared, personalized voicemail messaging at your disposal.
The problem could be a result of a virus or software bug on your phone. Before resetting your phone back to its factory settings, back up all of the information stored on it to another device, so that you can put it back onto your phone after the reset.
19. "Hello, you've reached [your name]. I'm currently [exploring Asia, hiking through the jungle in Costa Rica, hanging out on the beach in Bermuda] — or more likely, [recovering from extreme jet lag, googling ‘Are red spiders poisonous,' or looking for SPF 150 sunscreen] and won't be back in the office until [date]. Leave your contact info and reason for calling and I'll get in touch then."
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Sound sales efforts are consultative and customer-centric, and sales voicemails are no different. They should revolve around helping your prospect — not forcing them along your pipeline.
Expert advice: Four phone script lessons from “Mr. Inside Sales” that will double your close rate
The tone of your voice when leaving sales voicemails is almost as important as the actual words you say. If you obviously sound like a salesman, your message will be deleted before it even ends. You want to speak in a tone of voice thats friendly, confident, and casual—not overly excited, nervous, or desperate-sounding.
“Hi, this is Luke. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you.”
Different phone systems allow users to see different amounts of information ranging from a number, to name and number, to nothing at all. So, this “missed call” method of requesting a call back could end up costing you the very thing you are seeking.
Leaving ambiguous voicemail messages almost guarantees that you will not get all you could have from the conversation, as you did not give the person you called the opportunity to prepare for your call.