Avoid background noise. Whether you have music playing in your office, or you’re sitting in a coffee shop, background noise can make it difficult for your customers to understand your greeting. Limit the noise around you when you leave your voicemail greeting.
Adam Boalt, CEO of LiveAnswer, a provider of phone support services for small and midsized businesses, puts the voicemail abandonment rate at between 50 percent and 75 percent, depending on the type of business.
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Nobody wants to play phone tag. Skip the back and forth by explicitly telling the caller to leave their name, number, and the best day(s) and time(s) to reach them. Your clients will appreciate you not wanting to waste their time.
Thank you for calling (Your Name) at (Your Business), where (What You Do). I’m sorry that I was unable to take your call. Please leave me your name, number, and a quick message and I’ll call you back shortly.
Instructions can also be found at www.coxbusiness.com/voice mail. The Voice Mail Quick Reference Guide will walk you through frequently used prompts and commands. After the migration of voice mail, will I be able to retrieve messages from my original voice mailbox?
Different businesses may require different types of greetings. This is the ultimate list that can work for a wide array of company messages.
Here’s another funny one for those times you really want to lighten the business mood:
10.) Hello, and welcome to John Doe. For technical reasons we can not take your call personally. Thank you for your understanding. We are working very hard on a solution. If you want, you can leave a message on our homepage www.johndoe.de - Thank you and goodbye.
After helping tens of thousands of companies set up voicemail systems, we’ve learned that there is no set of rules defining what makes a great business voicemail, but there are definitely some key points that you should aim to hit. Before you hit the record button for your voicemail message, take some of these tips into account:
28. Hello, you’ve reached [your name]. I can’t come to the phone right now, probably because I’ve just stepped away from my desk, but possibly because I’m trapped under something heavy. Leave a message and I’ll call you back within one business day — and if I don’t, please send help.
If this feature is enabled, be sure to record your voicemail greeting with the appropriate guidance for the caller. For example, “To reach my assistant, press 0.” Set Up Your Voicemail Greetings
Jessica Sheehan agrees. She heads social media for JPMorgan Chase and was one of the employees opting to get rid of voice mail. Everyone she works with already knows the best way to reach her is on Twitter, Facebook, instant message or text — even her mom.
Set the number of rings you'd like callers to hear before they hear your voicemail greeting.
It’s important to ensure the content is informative and relevant to the caller. And the rule ‘less is more’ very much applies to writing for the ear. It’s important to keep the sentences short and to the point. A popular way to get a message across is follow this structure: Introduce the topic in the first sentence e.g. Did you know that BusinessCo now offers no contract plans for hosted PBX and business VoIP? Explain how the information will benefit the caller in the second sentence e.g. And that means complete flexibility for your business and no long-term commitments. Wrap up with a call to action in the third sentence e.g. To find out more, visit our website businesspbx.com.au or speak to one of our Business Consultants when you come off hold.
12. "Hi, you've reached [company]. We're available by phone from [hour] to [hour] [time zone] Monday through Friday [optional: and from hour to hour on the weekends]. You can also contact us by going to our website, [URL], and live-chatting or emailing us. If you'd like us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the tone."
If you need a longer script or are having a Q & A Voicemail Script recorded, please refer to the pricing chart at the bottom of this page.
Don’t include the date unless it’s completely necessary. 16 of the messages I heard last month had the wrong date—one of the messages had a date over 2 months old!