This article is about the second main type of greeting – the voicemail greeting. All businesses should have professional voicemail greetings at the company level (i.e. your general business number), department level (e.g. customer service), and employee level, where applicable. It’s important that each of these voicemail greetings align with the brand and personality of your company to ensure that every caller has a consistent experience. Let’s dive in!
Typically, a good business voicemail greeting should comprise the following elements: A warm greeting. Your name, the name of your company and department name. Make an apology for being unable to take the call. Ask the caller to leave a message. Let the caller know when to expect a return call. Voicemails are used by most businesses for Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Businesses spend over $26 billion on CRM, yet little changes can make all the difference. If you’re planning on using voicemails for greetings, you need to make sure you hit all the right notes. We’re going to show you five voicemail greetings scripts to demonstrate all the different things you need inside your voicemails. The optimal time for a voicemail is between 8 seconds and 14 seconds, so get to the point immediately. Say what you want to say and nothing more. Hello, you have reached X. I’m going to be out of the office until Y. Please leave your name and number so I can get back to you.

Whether it’s an out-of-stock product, a canceled event, or social media snafu, there are times when your business may see an influx of frustrated callers. While it is important to address their concerns head-on, you may not be able to answer each call as it’s received. Make sure you use best practices for dealing with angry customers, and that your voicemail greeting sets the appropriate tone. Avoid defensive language, validate their concerns, and keep them informed as to how you are handling the situation.
In Australian English it’s pronounced with the vowel /a:/ like in ‘part’. Problems arise when people use the /ʌ/ vowel (like in ‘up’) instead of /æ/ or /a:/. If you do this is will sound like the worst swear word in English. Many non-native speakers often pronounce the vowel /æ/ more like /ʌ/ because they don’t have a vowel like /æ/ in their first language. Many speakers of European languages will do this (Spanish speakers and Italian speakers) and also speakers of Japanese and Korean. This problem with /æ/ also means that if you say the word ‘back’ in your voicemail greeting sample, you are likely to pronounce it more like ‘buck’. remember to pronounce word endings in English. Check you aren’t dropping any endings off or mispronouncing them.