We’re keeping it simple with this one. Just a few basic elements to help you get started. As long as you know who your audience is, the message you wish to convey, and the information you need from the caller, the rest should fall into place quite nicely. Let’s face it, a voicemail greeting for a lumber company will probably be different than that of a psychologist’s office. One greeting is aimed at securing potential customers, and the other is geared towards appointments, more or less. Once you are certain who your caller is, the better your voicemail. Center on your audience, first and foremost. Knowing what to relate ensures that your caller will leave the right message. For instance, if you’re a retail store, you would include your hours of operations, and perhaps any specials that you’re running. If you are a therapist’s office, then you’d need to include an alternate number in case a patient is having an issue and requires immediate help. Again, this will vary depending on the business. Here, a therapist would definitely request the caller leave their contact information. However, a retail store chain might not request that. There are also complex voicemail systems such as those used by mobile phone services, which ask you to press a certain number on your phone, where you are asked to leave your account information. Again, as you can see, it all boils down to the demographics of your callers, and what you need from them to conduct the best business possible. Depending on the situation, your caller might be in a good mood or not. In either case, they’ll probably be eagerly awaiting your call. So, it stands to reason that you only promise them a call back if you can deliver. In other words, if you’re a small shop and you’ve decided to close due to a much-needed sabbatical, then don’t leave a voicemail greeting where you promise them to call right back. However, if you have an active customer service staff, then you can promise to return their call within the same day.
Voicemail greetings can include any information you’d wish to convey, such as special sales, bargains, alternate phone numbers to use, or your company’s normal working hours.

Ideally, you have a few scripts ready to go for every call. At a minimum, you should have a cold call script, warm lead script, and voicemail message scripts at your fingertips. Voicemail marketing is an especially important place to use a script. Why? You have 20-30 seconds to leave your message (shorter is usually better). You want it to be concise, engaging, and, of course, encouraging of a callback. When all the information is right in front of you, you don’t have to think about it or worry whether or not you left out anything important. We’ve all probably left at least one message with the wrong callback number or a message where we fail to identify ourselves or our company. Scripts help prevent this!
Here are some examples of voicemail greetings for your direct business line that are both personal and professional. Enjoy!