How To Create a Great Voicemail Greeting
When was the last time you thought about your company voicemail greeting? Businesses often record voicemail messages as an afterthought, leaving the same greeting up for months or even years. But a voicemail recording has much more power than some realize. As a primary response to your callers, it can potentially help engage and keep callers engaged or drive them away from your business to a competitor.
The best voicemail messages all share something in common. They’re friendly, professional, concise, and most importantly, helpful to their callers. But where should companies start when creating their voicemail scripts? Here are some tips and tricks we have learned over the past 25 years of helping our customers with their phone greetings.
How Do I Write A Business Voicemail Greeting?
Professional voicemail greetings influence, inform, and instruct. Most importantly, they do all this as quickly as possible, preferably in less than 30 seconds. Let’s dig into what we mean:
- Influence: A good voicemail message gets callers to stay on the phone when no one answers. The worst-case scenario is for someone to hang up and call a competitor when no one answers. Greetings should make the caller feel valued and appreciated and keep them on the line long enough to leave a message.
- Inform: If callers cannot reach you, they will want to know why and when they can expect to speak with someone. Phone greetings should let your callers know who you are when you’re open and when they’ll get a callback. Other company information is helpful, but keep brevity in mind when composing your greeting.
- Instruct: Give callers clear instructions on what information you need from them. Obtaining their name and contact information is standard, but consider what other information could expedite callbacks. Acquiring as many details as possible (within time considerations) arms you with facts and makes the caller feel heard.
With those guidelines in mind, let’s start building a short voicemail greeting for a service representative at a fictional company. We’ll start our voicemail greeting example by thanking the caller and introducing ourselves:
Thank you for calling Art Ditto with Washington Widgets. I apologize for missing your call.
We’re taking a “sandwich” approach, placing an informative statement between two influential ones. First, we make the caller feel appreciated, and then we begin informing them whom they’ve reached. Following that with a statement apologizing for not answering is meant to keep them on the line. Starting this way is a friendly way to start while keeping things professional. Let’s keep going.
If you’ve reached this message during our business hours of 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, I am away from my desk or assisting another customer.
We’ve informed the caller of our business hours, which sets an expectation for when a callback can occur. It is also vital to let them know why we have missed their call. It forms an expectation of a healthy, busy business that focuses on customer service.
Please leave a detailed message after the tone, including your name, preferred contact number or email address, account or order number, and the reason for your call. I will return your call by the next business day.
Now we’ve arrived at the meat of our voice message. We need to gather as much information as we can about our callers, including who they are, what they need, and how to get back in touch with them. Some customers prefer to be followed up with by email rather than phone, which is why we list that as a potential contact method. Finally, we set a reasonable expectation of when we will return their call.
Now let’s put it all together and see how it looks:
Thank you for calling Art Ditto with Washington Widgets. I apologize for missing your call. If you’ve reached this message during our business hours of 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, I am away from my desk or assisting another customer. Please leave a detailed message after the tone, including your name, preferred contact number or email address, account or order number, and the reason for your call. I will return your call by the next business day.
What if the voicemail greeting is for the business rather than an individual? We adjust the greeting to accommodate the change.
Thank you for calling Washington Widgets. We apologize for missing your call. If you’ve reached this message during our business hours of 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, we are either away from the phone or assisting another customer. Please leave a detailed message after the tone, including your name, preferred contact number or email address, account or order number, and the reason for your call. We will return your call by the next business day.
We hope these voicemail greeting examples help you consider how you want to sound. Need more advice in creating a work voicemail greeting? At AccessDirect, we’ve been helping companies with voicemail for over 25 years. From writing to recording, we can help you every step of the way. Contact us today to find out how we can help you communicate more effectively with your callers!
