If you’re not going to apologize or sound regretful about it, chances are you will lose on potential prospects. Mean it to your prospects how you are really sorry you can’t assist them at the moment.
Users often don’t invest enough time into their messages, resulting in incomplete, unprofessional, or otherwise under-whelming greetings. Sure, crafting a greeting doesn’t sound all that complicated; however, there are a number of pitfalls users can fall into—i.e. informality, terseness, sincerity, lack of direction, and more. While none of these sound too catastrophic, they are often interrelated. As such, they tend to worsen any problem. For example, humor can cause informality, worsen ambiguity, and weaken sincerity. That being said, users should strive to avoid ALL these pitfalls.
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Make sure you don’t use a monotone voice when you record your business voicemail greetings. Use inflection in your voice so you don’t sound like a robot.
First of all, you need to have a sound upbeat in your voicemail. Make sure you have a smile on your face while recording your voicemail. If you are unhappy, this is definitely evident in your message. As a business owner, of course, you aim for happy customers. At this point, your first duty towards your customers will be to look happy.
9. “Hey, it’s [your name] at [your company] – thanks for giving me a call! I can’t wait to chat. Just leave your name, number and I’ll call you back as soon as I have the chance. Better yet, send me a text with the best time to reach you and the reason for your call. Looking forward to hearing from you.” Text communication is becoming much more relevant now. Direct your caller to text you in case they have a question you can answer easier via text. Who knows, they might prefer text messages to phone calls too.
A virtual business phone system like Grasshopper can help you create a professional, reliable voicemail greeting. It includes instant response and custom greetings, as well as access to the Grasshopper Voice Studio and professional voice talent for a one-time fee of $75.
Make sure to keep your voicemail greeting fresh and new. In fact, updating your voicemail regularly will ensure that people actually listen to your message. Anytime you are on vacation, at a conference or other industry-related event, change your greeting to reflect where you are at.
Customers do not possess the expertise and knowledge you do. When creating your business voicemail greetings, make sure you don’t use such technical terms that the customer may not be able to understand.
To create a professional business voicemail greeting, businesses need to do several things:
3. Hello, this is [your name]. I’m sorry I’ve missed your call. If you leave your name, number, and reason for calling, I’ll get back to you as promptly as possible.
19. “Thank you for calling [company]. We’re closed for [holiday] from [date] until [date]. Please leave your message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a happy holiday!”
12. “Hello, you’ve reached the Customer Support department at [company name]. We are unable to take your call at the moment. We know your time is valuable so instead of placing you on hold, let us call you back! Please leave your name, phone number, the reason for your call, and two different times that are convenient for you to receive a call back from us. Thank you!” Get a better idea of your caller’s schedule by asking them for a few different times you can call back. Their time is important, too!
Set up voicemail online The online voicemail Setup Wizard walks you through every step of setting up your voicemail. For more info about voicemail, check out the AT&T Phone for Business Voicemail (PDF, 6.28MB). Log in to myAT&T.If you don’t have a myAT&T account, register to establish your Member ID and password. From the Account Overview Page
Note: To enable visual voicemail, ask your admin to make sure you are enabled for Exchange Unified Messaging, following instructions in the Configure Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition guide. Missed call and message notifications
While there are a number of resources to help coach users in making a proficient voicemail greeting, some users still feel they are not doing enough. As such, there are a number of tools currently available to help even further. a. Professional Voice Recording: Now that you’re versed in the process of recording your greeting, you may feel a burdening sense of responsibility. As such, you may find that weight to be too heavy to lift alone. Well, rest easy. There are a number of companies and services for recording quality professional greetings.
You don’t need to have your whole life story in your voicemail greeting, you just basically need them to know that they reached the right person and that you will be getting back to them as soon as you can. This is the part where people like to get funny, maybe by saying, “hey, I’m out and definitely avoiding you,” which is funny if your friends are calling, but not if someone you want to work for is trying to reach you.
It’s a good practice for each of your team members to have their own personal business phone numbers. There are many reasons why they shouldn’t use their personal cell phone number for business, so you’ll want to give them their own phone number through your VoIP provider or phone system.