Professional Voicemail Greetings for Businesses

Sounding like a pro

Rule No. 1 of business (and marketing for that matter): make a good, lasting first impression. Translated to the world of phone communication this means that if someone calls you and he/she is greeted by your auto-attendant, the redirecting/out-of-office message the caller hears must be polite, informative, inviting to leave a message, yet short (20–25 seconds tops). It should give out only the necessary info and devoid of clichés (phrases like “Your call is important to us”). More precisely, a voicemail greeting must contain:

• A greeting
• Your name
• The name of your company/department
• Why you can’t take the call (with apology)
• Invitation to leave a message
• When they can expect you to return the call
• Whom they can turn to should they need immediate assistance

The options you have

If you want your callers to be greeted by a professional voicemail greeting, you have two options. The first option is doing it for yourself by either typing in the message and get it read by a robot, recording the message via your cloud phone system’s account, or uploading a previously recorded wav/mp3 file. If you go with the latter, write down the message, which must be unique, upbeat, engaging and informative, practice it a lot and then record it with a natural tone and (hopefully) with a smile on your face.

The other, albeit pricy option is to have professionals record your voicemail. Many companies like Grasshopper, iTeleCenter, VirtualPBX, RingCentral and Phone.com have services in which voice talents will read your customized voicemail/auto-attendant greetings for prices starting from around $50, even with different accents in different languages. And there are extreme cases like eVoice through which you can hire live receptionists to sound the most authentic possible.