Your Voicemail Greeting Is Important
In many instances, voicemail greetings are what give consumers their first impression of a business. To make sure you make a positive impact — one that will motivate callers to leave a message and contact you again — your voicemail greeting needs to convey certain things.
Your greeting needs to demonstrate that you’re professional. It should also communicate that you care about your callers, appreciate them taking time out of their busy schedules to reach out to you and look forward to speaking with them in the future. Even if you use an auto attendant to answer your calls, it’s still critical to put together a successful, impactful voicemail greeting. But how do you create a professional voicemail greeting on your phone system?
Tips to Create a DIY Voicemail Greeting for Your Business
The first thing you should do if you’re going to create your own professional voicemail greeting is figure out what you want to say. The recommended length of a professional voicemail is just 20-25 seconds, so don’t waste time with filler information that doesn’t actually add value to your message.
Certain pieces of information should be present in every professional voicemail greeting, including your name, the name of your company and department, and a statement about you not being able to take a call at the moment. Your greeting should also include an invitation for a caller to leave a message, a notice of when they can expect a return call and instructions about where they can get immediate assistance — a coworker’s direct line, website, etc.
If you need your callers to leave certain pieces of information in their message, such as an order or reference number, ask them to do so in your voicemail greeting. To limit the chances you’ll end up playing phone tag with a caller, it’s also advisable to ask them to provide the time of day that’s best for you to return their call.
Once you’ve finalized your script and made sure it includes all of the information mentioned above, you can use the following tips to record a voicemail greeting that will make the right impression on your callers:
- Practice, Practice, Practice: While it’s normal to pause during conversations and say “um” from time to time, these things can ruin the impression you want your greeting to make. To avoid sounding unprofessional, practice your script several times over until you can get through it perfectly.
- Record in the Right Environment: It’s important to pick the right environment in which to record your voicemail greeting. Ideally, the environment you pick will have a minimal amount of background noise. If your message is filled with ancillary noises, you won’t project a professional image, and your callers may get distracted or feel unimportant. If your work environment is noisy, consider recording your greeting at home or another quiet location.
- Smile: When you smile while you’re on the phone, the people on the other end of the line know it, and they know you care about them. Be sure you keep a smile on your face and an upbeat attitude as you record your voicemail greeting.
When to Use a Professionally Recorded Voicemail Greeting
Even if you follow our tips for creating a professional voicemail greeting, you may still want to use AccessDirect’s recorded voicemail greeting services. There are plenty of circumstances that warrant using a professional voicemail greeting from us. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you don’t have time to spend trying write and edit a script, record your greeting multiple times, or figure out how to seamlessly upload it to your phone system.
With AccessDirect, we do the work for you. Our experts work with you to create a customized script, complete with a warm greeting and instructions for callers. To add another level of professionalism, AccessDirect offers voice talent to record the greeting, so you know the voicemail greeting will be crystal clear and recited at the perfect pace. Finally, AccessDirect will upload the recorded voicemail greeting to your virtual business phone system.
Our voicemail greetings instantly communicate you’re a serious business that takes its callers seriously. Your message can include dial-by-name or extension options, and you can easily remove employee names and extensions as necessary. Even if you’re a one-person operation, you can use our voicemail greeting to give callers the impression your business consists of multiple departments and a roster of employees.
Do you want your voicemail greeting to make the right impression every time someone calls your business? Contact AccessDirect to learn more about our customizable, professional voicemail greetings and auto attendant systems now.
