Auto-attendant greeting or voicemail greeting? Auto attendant voicemail!
What should you record? But first, how many voice mailboxes do you have? How do they differ? It’s unlikely that you need the same voice recordings on each, as each voicemail greeting is unique to the line. Perhaps you have a personal voicemail at home. Another voicemail for your mobile phone. Yet another voicemail for work, and perhaps even more beyond that. Btw, for an in-depth dive into Auto-attendants, read my previous post here.
Hold the phone, look at it, think about your messaging.
All these voicemail recordings should have some common elements such as an identifier (where you’ve reached, who’s mailbox this is, a name, a department, etc.) as well as simple instructions. Beyond that, think of the goal, what information is needed from the caller.
Focus first, benefit later. Concentrated messaging means less listening time.
When scripting your voicemail greeting it’s important to consider both the question of what information you require from your callers and the information they need as well.
If you need a business name, phone number or anything else, ask for it in your greeting. You should mention who you are or the name of your business, and an alternative contact if that’s available. This information lets the caller know they’ve reached the right mailbox, and this increases the likelihood of them leaving a useful message.
What are examples of good content you should record to your voicemail.
These would work equally well for a personal voicemail box or as auto attendant prompts.
“Thank you for calling [Company Name]. This is [Name] and I’m unable to take your call now. Please leave your name and phone number and I’ll return you call as soon as I’m available.”
“Hi, thanks for calling [Company Name/Name]. Please leave a short message and I’ll respond as soon as possible. Have a nice day!”
But those examples are dull and boring! Yes, and they’re predictable too. That’s actually very good, as people needn’t be surprised when they’ve taken the time to call your business. They should be welcomed in a friendly, informative way.
By the way, you can hear a smile, so be sure to smile when you record your voicemail messages.
If you don’t believe me, please listen to several of our voice talent demos where they read auto attendant prompts or other content such as professional IVR prompts. We have many US English speaking talents, as well as a wealth of foreign language voice talents as well. If you need a recording in Spanish, French, Navajo, or Turkish, we have a talent we’ve worked with for years who can’t wait to smile as the voice your script.
We’ve composed voicemail greetings in as many as 9 languages so that virtually any caller will be greeted with a smile and a voice they understand. If you’d like to have someone else do the ‘heavy-lifting’ when it comes to recording pleasant sounding greetings for your voicemail, auto attendant prompts, outbound IVR voice prompts, or any other type of professional voice recordings please contact us at [email protected].
We talk about voicemail like most folks talk about sports if you know what I mean. We live voicemail, we breath auto-attendant, we dream in IVR prompts and we concatenate in our sleep. We are the voice professionals, and we’d love to be your voice too.