I have a confession to make: I haven’t recorded a new voicemail greeting since 2014. In the past four years, I (hopefully) have become more articulate, poised, and self-assured. But hear my voicemail recording, and you’d think I was still new to the work world, a little unsure of myself — and probably not an authority. Obviously I need toupdate it. And if you haven’t changed your voicemail greeting in over a year, you’re likely in the same boat. After all, a professional voicemail recording boosts your credibility, makes you seem more competent, and encourages whoever’s listening to it to continue the relationship. A relatively unprofessional one — like mine, for instance — does the opposite: It encourages prospects, recruiters, and potential connections to run in the other direction. With that in mind, I’ve written 18 unique voicemail greetings for every situation. Pick your favorite, practice a few times, then record your new voicemail.
Solution: Poor sound quality is unlikely the fault of a reliable business voicemail service that uses VoIP technology, Baldwin says. So garbled voicemails are often due to callers’ poor mobile phone reception while leaving their message—and you may just need to call them back, assuming you can figure out their phone number. But if the problem does seem to be your voicemail, make sure you’re using a business phone and voicemail service that uses VoIP and not relying on, say, your mobile phone’s voice mailbox.

A lot of small businesses set up a 13, 1300 or 1800 number to appear more professional, but that’s only the first step. Using a business phone service gives you a range of advantages over your standard landline, including the ability to: Set your business hours and record different voice greetings to align with a particular time of day or year. Set up an automated response, add department extensions to route the calls, and more. Have multiple users on the phone number via call overflow regardless of their location. For ideas on what to include in your voicemail greeting, see our blog on examples of professional voicemail greetings.
For additional details on the voice mail menu and associated options, see the Quick Reference Guide and User Guide. Cox Business Voice Mail includes high-value features to make leaving and retrieving messages efficient for you and your employees. Here is a summary of Voice Mail features: Three main voice mail options: Basic, Extension, and Group Voice Mail Speedy access when you dial “*298” from your desk phone Optional services for Unified Messaging and Readable Voice Mail Other Voice Mail Specifications We need to update the greeting in a voice mailbox, but prevent callers from leaving a message. Can we configure this with standard voice mail? Cox Business Voice mail offers multiple greetings options for you. The Extended Absence Greeting allows you to customize a greeting and select whether or not you want to prevent callers from leaving a message after the greeting plays. Press 5 from the Greetings menu to activate this feature.