A professional voicemail greeting is essential in many aspects of a business. In sales, it enables you to properly respond to inquiries from prospects and customers or discuss a deal in more detail. When they call, and you can’t answer, you may lose the opportunity for immediate communication and potentially lose a client or customer.
06Hi, you’ve reached the offices of [your company/name]. I will be out of the office between [dates] and [date]. You can reach me on my private cell [your number] if this is an emergency. Alternatively, you can call me when I get back to the office or leave a brief message.
.
It's easy to get carried away in a voicemail and include more detail than is necessary. We've all been in that situation where the automated or pre-recorded voice on the end of the line goes on and on with more information than you can take in.
These are only a few of the ways your business can meet the standards of today’s customers. For your business to gain happy customers, you have to have a system that will help you. Even small businesses can increase their experience by using a high-quality business phone system.
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Although often used as a synonym for virtual phone numbers, VoIP numbers actually differ from them. While the former use private data centers to route calls over existing land and cell phone lines, VoIP numbers use public internet for routing calls. Both solutions are less expensive than some traditional phone services and they enable you to take and make calls on the go. VoIP numbers are less reliable as they depend on the strength of your internet connection.
Different businesses may require different types of greetings. This is the ultimate list that can work for a wide array of company messages.
Telling a quick joke or including a little more information can keep you safely within the 20-second timeframe while letting the caller understand a little more about you.
Vonage Business plans go down in the price per line the more phone lines you have. For example, for 1-4 lines, plans start at $19.99 monthly per line. For 5-19 lines, plans start at $17.99 monthly per line. For 20-99 lines, plans start at $14.99 monthly per line. Learn more about Vonage’s Business Cloud plans and pricing here, and the state of Vonage Business here.
Most VoIP solutions will require stable and consistent internet connectivity at all your office locations where VoIP will be used. At the very least, your business phone system must have access to a business-class internet link, so discuss these needs with your company's internet service provider (ISP). This should be a dedicated link through a dedicated router if you expect your phone calls to sound as if they were coming from a business and not someone's home Skype connection. At a minimum, it's important to have a router that can create virtual LANs (VLANs) and also has the ability to encrypt your voice traffic. These days, you need end-to-end VoIP security for any call.
With a voicemail-to-email service, you have the option of deleting the voicemail from your phone system or third party storage service once it has been sent to you. This frees up space for new voicemails to be saved, so callers never reach a dead end.
*Use the word “with” instead of “to.” It sounds more positive. You want to talk “with” the person, not give them a “talking to.” It’s a subtle difference, yet it keeps the message positive.
VoIP packages generally offer the most features at economical pricing, but are subject to the vagaries of your current ISP. You may also be on the hook for purchasing their equipment.
When you’re looking for a job, a good rule of thumb is to answer your phone as often as you can. You never know when a recruiter might be calling to set up an in-person meeting, or conduct a phone interview.
800-555-1212I will be checking my voicemail messages periodically, so please leave me a message and I will return your call as soon as possible. If you need immediate assistance, please contact my assistant, Suzy Jones at 1-800-555-1212 extension 6336.
There are a couple of ways to evaluate the costs for a small business phone system. If you're adding or replacing handsets or other hardware, you'll have to determine up-front costs separate from ongoing service fees.
Voice over IP (VoIP) systems dominate the small to midsized business (SMB) telephone market, and that's only grown stronger during the pandemic. Not just because they're cheaper than an on-premises PBX, but mainly because they're mostly software, which makes them far more flexible. There's nothing an old fashioned PBX can do that a VoIP system can't, but there's a very long list of things you can do with VoIP that just aren't possible using on-premises hardware.
Workeasy is focused on being voicemail for growing businesses. They also offer a toll-free virtual phone number service. No free trial, starts at $19.95/month. Note that some features that are all-included in the price of other packages (such as auto attendant greeting) have an add-on fee. So compare prices carefully. Feature We Like: Voice talent service – they’ll provide a professional to record your voice message for you. [Note: service appears to be gone.]