How many voicemail messages do you get each week? If you’re like most professionals, you’re often far too busy to answer your phone as it rings and allow most calls to go through to voicemail. This means that a significant number of professional contacts, clients, and business associates listen to your voicemail greeting before they get the chance to talk to you directly. In last week’s blog, we gave you a series of tips for leaving a great voicemail message that gets results. Today, we’ll look at the other side of the coin: How to craft a voicemail greeting that is clear, professional, and polished.
Record in a Quite Space: It may fade into the background for you, but noise like ringing phones, chatting coworkers, or a noisy heating system will be very noticeable and distracting to your caller. In addition to sounding unprofessional, this background noise can make your greeting difficult to understand. Find a quiet location before recording your greeting.
Slow and Clear: When recording your message, take care to speak even more slowly and clearly than usual. Space out your words, and pronounce all of the sounds in each word, particularly the consonants at the ends of words. It doesn’t matter how well your greeting is crafted if no one can understand it!
Short and Sweet: The ideal voicemail greeting should be no longer than twenty to twenty-five seconds. This is especially important in light of the fact you will most likely have many repeat callers who would prefer not to listen to a lengthy greeting each time they call.
The Basics: Although you need to keep your greeting short, make sure it has all of the following: a brief introduction letting your caller know who they’ve reached (your name, company and position); a brief statement that you are unable to answer the phone at the moment; a request for the caller to leave a message; and any additional information that may be helpful (for example, instructions to refer to your website for certain information or a number they can call if they need immediate assistance).
If you are looking to polish your communication skills be sure to pick up a free copy of my e-book “Communicate with Clarity and Confidence!” by subscribing to our newsletter community on our website. For additional information call us at 212-308-7725 or send us an e-mail at jayne@corporatespeechsolutions.com to learn more. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!