True emergencies - such as extraordinary weather - should be addressed in your voicemail if it impacts your business. Thank you for calling the Carona Surf Shop. We are currently closed due to the inclement weather. Our normal business hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 9 pm. Please visit www.caronasurfshop.com to order merchandise and to check our schedule during the hurricane.
We’re keeping it simple with this one. Just a few basic elements to help you get started. As long as you know who your audience is, the message you wish to convey, and the information you need from the caller, the rest should fall into place quite nicely. Let’s face it, a voicemail greeting for a lumber company will probably be different than that of a psychologist’s office. One greeting is aimed at securing potential customers, and the other is geared towards appointments, more or less. Once you are certain who your caller is, the better your voicemail. Center on your audience, first and foremost. Knowing what to relate ensures that your caller will leave the right message. For instance, if you’re a retail store, you would include your hours of operations, and perhaps any specials that you’re running. If you are a therapist’s office, then you’d need to include an alternate number in case a patient is having an issue and requires immediate help. Again, this will vary depending on the business. Here, a therapist would definitely request the caller leave their contact information. However, a retail store chain might not request that. There are also complex voicemail systems such as those used by mobile phone services, which ask you to press a certain number on your phone, where you are asked to leave your account information. Again, as you can see, it all boils down to the demographics of your callers, and what you need from them to conduct the best business possible. Depending on the situation, your caller might be in a good mood or not. In either case, they’ll probably be eagerly awaiting your call. So, it stands to reason that you only promise them a call back if you can deliver. In other words, if you’re a small shop and you’ve decided to close due to a much-needed sabbatical, then don’t leave a voicemail greeting where you promise them to call right back. However, if you have an active customer service staff, then you can promise to return their call within the same day.

To provide as much helpful insight to businesses as possible, we've compiled the top must-have information that should be included in your office's temporary voicemail greeting. 1. Your voicemail should be timely and relevant to the situation at hand. 2. Indicate if you’re working remotely or changing office hours temporarily. 3. Set clear, reasonable expectations for your callers about when they should expect to hear back from someone. 4. State clearly what types of matters are urgent and give examples of issues that are not. This way, patients and callers can have a good understanding of what to expect about call-backs and reduce unnecessary follow-up calls. 5. If you have made disruptions to existing appointments, you should note this, as well as how you plan to reach people to reschedule.
With cost, it’s important to know how much you will pay for each user, and the features included with that amount. You’ll want to identify your own unique telecommunications needs, and then find the right fit based on those needs, as opposed to simply reviewing the options on the market.