The first step in creating a voicemail greeting is deciding what you want to say. Writing down your greeting is the easiest way to ensure that you do not forget anything vital or trip over your words when recording. If possible, ask someone else to listen to your greeting before recording it to make sure it is clear. You want to make sure your greeting gives clear instructions; otherwise, callers may be less likely to leave a message.
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.

While covering all of the relevant information, aim to keep your voicemail to about 20 seconds. You definitely should not ever record a business voicemail longer than 30 seconds, and anything less than 10 seconds will typically mean that you are either speaking too quickly or aren’t providing all of the required information.
If you drone on and on, there is a good chance that some of your callers are going to hang up before leaving their message.