Business voicemail greetings may not seem very important at first, but it’s a business practice that can affect your success, especially if your company services customers by phone. More individual calls in American businesses end up in a voice mailbox than actually get picked up. Customized voicemail greetings can give information to callers after business hours or inform callers of specific details like an employee who is on vacation or has specific phone hours for clients. Professional voicemail greetings encourage callers to call again.
There are a few ways to produce customized greetings for voicemail:
1. Do it yourself. All voicemail systems have a recorder you can use to create a custom voicemail greeting using your own voice and message.
2. Enlist the services of an outside company. Many companies create audio voiceovers for other businesses.
3. Use the Internet. Computer technology has made it possible for anyone with recording equipment to create personalized voicemail greetings for others and send the final product as an audio file via email.
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Create your own customized voicemail greetings at no cost
Some people have that radio-style "DJ-voice" naturally; others are just inherently good communicators. If you know someone like this and want to save yourself some money, bring them in. Before you take advantage of do-it-yourself techniques, read up on how to make excellent voicemail greetings first.
I recommend: Listen to samples online for voicemail customized greetings for businesses made by professionals at
Voice123 to see if what you can do on your own will compare. Review the tips offered in
Microsoft’s Small Business Center on how to make your voicemail greetings effective.
Contract voice mail customized greetings to a company that specializes in business audio products
Hiring a professional to do your voicemail will guarantee you get a professional-quality product and take the hassle out of having to do it yourself, especially for large companies where several hundred employees at once may need voicemail greetings.
I recommend: GotVoice offers many different professional audio services with a two-week trial period.
Jeffsounds offers audio voiceovers for several different industries.
Work with companies that create customized voice mail greetings online
Not only does someone else do the work, but a click of the mouse is all you'll need to set up the customized voicemail greetings once you record the message.
I recommend: Start your production online now at
SNAP’s website.
Professional Voice Greetings has a tutorial on its website for how to download products.
Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
- Have other trusted professionals who work with you (that don't mind telling you the truth) listen to any customized greeting you make with your own voice. We all sound differently to ourselves than we do to other people; therefore, our own opinion of how we sound on a personalized voicemail greeting doesn't really count.
The official source of Voice Mail Customized Greetings is
the Voice Mail: Customized Greetings page at Business.com
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