How to nail a great voicemail greeting

So the voicemail was really popular in the 80’s and 90’s when they reigned supreme. Some even used it to be a little creative with your brand and voicemail greetings back then often consisted of pranks, a recorded song (horrendous quality), and maybe sometimes, although rare – a normal greeting. But with the breakthrough of IM that enjoyed the phenomena asynchronous communication. This pretty much left voicemail on the loosing end for the day-to-day users, but remained popular among businesses engaging with customers. The purpose however hasn’t changed, but it has become more crucial than ever to get that greeting right. Customers are in line with fast pace technology, used to just as speedy responses. This not only applies to personal matters, but also business relationships.

Regardless of a range of options of how customers can contact a business, including; e-mail, chat, and social media – customers still tend to call when something is urgent and don’t want to wait for a response. This is where a great voicemail greeting comes into play. For example, if your agent is getting swarmed by incoming calls and can’t answer them all, a voice greeting is the last chance you have to make your case as a brand that truly cares. And if you don’t get it right you might come off as dismissive, which only leaves you with one customer less.

But luckily, we happen to be a business that can help you observe and find a solution that works for you and your customers, and we’d love to share it with you so keep reading!

Let’s get you a hooked up with a solution that works for you

We offer cloud PBX solutions that allow users to customize call flows in order to use different voicemail greetings for different situations. And as voice greetings are the first point of contact for most companies, it’s crucial that this is professional and gets the message across. This might also be a useful tool to make sure that the customer reaches the desired department or person. We also offer a self-service portal called MyAdmin that allows you to easily perform changes to the PBX yourself and this includes voice greetings. With MyAdmin you can easily record and change your voice greetings yourself and below is a tutorial of how it’s done.

For those that don’t want to do this themselves we offer professional recording of customized voice greetings where we record according to the script you want. After you’ve approved the material, our support will help you to update this in the PBX.

1. Go to admin.dstny.se.
2. Choose voice prompt in the left side menu
3. Click on new voice prompt above the list
4. Record or upload a file and save with your preferred settings

So what do you say in your voicemail greeting?

The businesses that typically need a voicemail greeting are usually multi-faceted and customer-oriented businesses such as marketing, sales, customer service, and business functions like HR. These all tend to receive different candidates and the voicemail needs to be adapted accordingly. For example, you can use an engaging and fun tone if you just want to showcase your brand. But customers calling in about something extremely urgent probably won’t find your witty greeting quite so amusing. Also, you might need certain information from the customer depending on the type of your organization, and you can use IVR that require certain button-clicks to get to the next step. But all in all, I think we can acknowledge that all departments that receive calls, need a custom greeting tailored for the purpose.

Usually businesses use voicemail greetings on the following occasions:

• A welcome message
• When a caller presses too many invalid options in the IVR
• When all available agents are busy
• When the office is closed
• If the caller chooses to leave a voicemail

But for all of the above, there are a few things to consider before creating your greeting. We have listed a few questions to answer that make sure your greeting is cohesive and conveys the message.

1. Who is the listener?
2. What frame of mind will they be in?
3. What message do you want to convey?
4. What kind of information do you need from them?
5. What are their alternatives?

So let’s imagine a customer scenario now; an annoyed customer is calling in and you want to welcome them and let them know how long they have to wait to hear from you. You need them to verify themselves with mobile Bank-ID due to sensitive data. You also want to let them know about other support channels if their concern is not urgent.

So writing a script from this might take from in something like this;

“You’ve reached Dstny support and thank you for calling in. The average wait time is 10 minutes so please be patient. You can now verify yourself with mobile Bank-ID so you can help us provide better service. You may also leave us a voicemail by pressing “1” and we will get back to your as soon as we can if your concern isn’t urgent. If you want to connect with someone immediately you can visit our website www.Dstny.se and chat with one of our agents.”

Here are a few useful tips to keep in mind;

1. Use a microphone and necessary equipment to record a high-quality greeting
2. Rehearse the script a couple of times before
3. Speak slowly and clearly
4. If you have an e-mail address or website in the script, spell it out
5. Record a couple of versions and choose the best of the bunch

Your voicemail greeting is more than a tool to make sure that you don’t miss out on any opportunities or information. It’s really your stand-in representative for when you can’t take calls. And it’s a version of you that your clients are met by every time you’re away, so make sure that it’s someone you’re proud of. Such a short message may not seem so meaningful – but it can really make a difference for your customers. Don’t loose them in your voicemail, and invest a little extra time in customizing your greeting to create an awesome and lasting impression on your customers.

Choose the right tone
Your tone may vary depending on what your company is all about. But it should usually be one of the following;

• Witty
• Happy
• Caring
• Diplomatic
• Frank
• Encouraging
• Impartial
• Inspiring
• Pragmatic
• Excited