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.
If you gave it an honest listen and you’re satisfied with what you heard, you can stop reading and go enjoy a cup of coffee. If not, or if you’d just like to read some reminders for creating a professional voicemail greeting, read on.

The bottom line is that a business’s situation is likely to change often and rapidly, each of which need a unique and applicable voicemail greeting to cover the circumstances and timeline. For example, callers shouldn’t reach a business-as-usual voicemail, and therefore expect a return call within the business day, if the subject they’re calling is out on vacation for two weeks. Such a lack of communication is a recipe to lose that caller’s trust and tarnish the brand’s reputation.
Don’t leave customers and colleagues on edge. If you say you’re going to call them back, follow up. If you tend to fall behind in this area, encourage them to email you or reach out in another way. Better yet, learn how to forward voicemail to email so you can access the message anywhere.