Before you read this, stop and listen to the voicemail greetings for your cellphone and business line. Seriously, I’ll wait.
Call Blasting is what we call Simultaneous Call Forwarding. It allows multiple phone lines to ring at the same time, such as your home phone, cell phone, or other office lines. This reduces caller wait times and keeps you in continuous communication with your customers.
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And it’s t he way a business builds emotional rapport, including something as “small” as the voicemail greetings on your business phone line, that inspires customers to connect in big ways. Thanksgiving is a perfect time to personalize your voicemail greetings because voicemail is often the first point of contact you have with customers.
Different businesses may require different types of greetings. This is the ultimate list that can work for a wide array of company messages.
– Thank you for calling (name of the company). If you know the extension number of the person you are trying to reach, you may dial it now. Press 1 for sales. Press 2 for customer service. Press 3 for the billing department. Press 8 to access our fax on-demand system. Press 9 for a company directory, or press 0 for the operator.
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!
For small businesses, there are a variety of voicemail service providers you can use that offer different features. From transcription and voice to text to more convenient features of handling multiple phones through one number, availability varies by service. Shared voicemail and call routing is intended for multiple access and directing calls to one or multiple phones. Mobile apps are also available that allow you to check your messages from your phone. The below infographic outlines the current state and trends of voicemails.
Voicemail greetings for calls received after business hours. 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.
You can choose where you would like to store your voicemail and fax messages—in the Calling User Portal or to a specified email address as a .tiff file. 1
Customer experience is today’s business battleground. At a time where it’s common for even the most established businesses to deliver poor service, incompetent support, and just outright bad communication, how do you stand out? As big companies fail in the customer experience department, doors open for small business owners and entrepreneurs to distinguish themselves.
If you are a burglar, then we’re probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can’t come to the phone. Otherwise, we probably aren’t home and it’s safe to leave us a message.
Hi. I am probably home, I’m just avoiding someone I don’t like. Leave me a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.
7. "Hello, this is [your name] at [company]. Thanks for calling. Please leave your name, number, and the reason you'd like to chat, and I'll get back to you ASAP."
If you’re planning on doing a sales call sprint via phone – so, possibly via voicemail – trust the scripts crafted by close.io’s Steli Efti on this one . Finally, since it tends to come out of people nearly automatically whenever they leave VMs on phones: Please don’t say “I tried calling you” or “I wasn’t able to reach you.”
* Trusted by over 200,000 businesses: "like Google Voice with better service or Grasshopper with a better app!"
Once I listened to my original recording, I knew it was time for an upgrade. I asked around for some tips about writing and recording voicemail greetings. Here's my process: What's wrong with this voicemail message? "Hey, What's Up?" isn't going to make a good impression for business calls. "Umm..." never makes you seem confident or professional, either. "I'll get back to you whenever I can" really means, "I'm probably screening your call and I won't call you back." "BEEP!" My message was cut off, and for six years, I didn't know and no one told me. Ouch. How I fixed it: 2. Then, I wrote down what I wanted to say and read it out loud a few times until I was satisfied with the flow. 3. I rehearsed and recorded my voicemail script a few times to hear how I sounded. (I tend to talk relatively quickly, so I wanted to make sure the message didn't sound rushed.) 4. For the final recording I recorded my message while smiling so I sounded happy and approachable. 5. I checked my final recording by listening to my voicemail message from both a cell phone and a landline, and also asked a friend to listen for a second opinion.
2. Open the dial pad. Tap the dial pad icon near the bottom of the screen to bring up your phone's dial pad.