Using humor is appropriate in some situations, but humor should be avoided in situations including serious businesses where reputations could be damaged or people could become upset. Both funny and sincere examples are included for a variety of options. These answering machine messages are the type that most people leave. These can be used for non-business or personal phones. Hi, you've reached ___-____. Please leave a message and I'll get back with you soon. Thanks. You know what to do. Thanks for calling. Just leave a message and we’ll get back with you. We’re sorry we can’t answer the phone right now, but we would love to get back with you as soon as we can. Just let us know what we can help you with and leave a number for us to get back with you soon. You've reached the voice mail of ______. I'm either away from my phone or talking with someone else. Leave me a message and I'll be happy to return your call. Hi. I must be away from my phone at the moment. Please leave me a message. I'll get back to you. These business answering messages can be edited to fit any type of business. It is important to anticipate what your callers may want to know even if the callers are not able to get anyone on the phone. It's always a good idea to let callers know exactly when their calls may be returned and to list the operating hours.
Voicemails don’t necessarily have to be monotonous or extremely jazzy or funky. What you should be looking for is a balance between the two. Whenever you call someone and their voicemail greeting is playing, it tells you a lot about who they are, as a person. Which is why, you’ve got to put a little bit of “you” when it comes to voicemail. And the best part about all of this is, since you couldn’t come to the phone, at least the callers are having a good time listening to the message.

Voicemails help in conveying messages from the caller when the concerned person is not available for attending the call. It has become a vital tool in telecommunication as the person receives the information instantly after accessing his phone. Thus voicemails allow us to stay connected with people both at personal and professional level.
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.