A professional voicemail greeting is crucial for small businesses because it sets the tone for interactions and the overall customer journey. An effective greeting should include five essential elements: a warm welcome, your company name or personal name, a prompt to explain the reason for the call, your operating hours, and a clear call to action.
Dive into our ultimate guide to learn how to craft professional voicemail messages. Or download and customize our free professional voicemail greeting template to suit your business.
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Never miss a call and create a lasting first impression with a professional voicemail greeting. Leading VoIP solutions like RingCentral provide advanced voicemail services to enhance your business communication and customer service.
Personal Work Phone Voicemail Greetings
High-quality voicemail greetings are crucial to improving business credibility. In addition to your company-wide business voicemail greetings, employees can create their voicemail greetings for their assigned phone number or extension. Adopt professional voicemail greeting examples to increase your professionalism.
Standard Greeting
Mobile Devices & Cell Phones
On Another Call
4. Hello, this is [your name] at [company name]. I’m on another call. Please leave your name and phone number, and I’ll call you back as soon as possible. I apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you, and I look forward to speaking with you.
Temporary out of the Office
Out of the Office (Emergency)
Vacation or Extended Leave
Many voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) service providers offer services that automatically route calls to voicemail after hours or when calls go unanswered. Nextiva offers voicemail-to-text transcription services that convert voicemail messages and text them to a mobile phone number. It also offers call group voicemail and lets teams customize their voicemail greetings through live recordings or uploaded audio files.
Access all your information, including calls, texts, and messages through the NextivaONE app. (Source: Nextiva)
For a detailed look at this cloud phone platform, explore our in-depth Nextiva review. Its Digital plan starts at just $25 per user per month, making it a cost-effective choice for small businesses needing streamlined communication services.
Email or Alternative Contact
Main Office Voicemail Greetings
A professional business voicemail greeting is what callers hear when they dial your main business number. Most business phone systems provide an auto-attendant to redirect callers to the right extension. If that’s not an option, we also have some voicemail greeting examples and scripts you can use.
Businesses Without an Auto-attendant
Extended Closure
Adjusted Hours
New Office Location
After Business Hours
Department-specific
Set your company’s greetings based on your official working hours. (Source: Grasshopper)
Grasshopper is a virtual phone provider that charges a fixed monthly fee for unlimited users, starting at only $18 per month. Aside from its all-inclusive business phone plans, this provider lets you record your company greetings on your own or through its Voice Studio, which hires professional voice actors to record your IVR greetings.
You can record in multiple languages, and each recording costs $75. Our Grasshopper review showcases what we like most about this provider and where it falls behind.
Holiday Voicemail Greetings
The best professional voicemail greeting for holidays communicates the season’s festive mood. Your customers may call your business even when you’re closed on holidays like July 4th or Thanksgiving. Here are a couple of voicemail greetings you can use if they do:
Company-wide Holiday Greetings
Personal Holiday Greetings
Emergency Holiday Contact
Promotional Voicemail Greetings
Use your voicemail greetings to make special announcements about any promotion, launch, or ongoing sale. For example, if you’re offering a significant discount or a new product, briefly mention it. Be careful that the information doesn’t detract from the core information your caller likely needs, like location and hours of operation.
Customer & Tech Support Voicemail Greetings
Every company should pride itself on providing exceptional customer service. Whether you have a dedicated customer support department or call center operation, there will be cases when all your agents may be preoccupied with other calls. Use the voicemail greetings below to leave a favorable impression on your customers.
Key Elements of a Professional Voicemail Greeting
A good professional voicemail greeting is short and professional and includes five key elements: a greeting, your company name, a brief explanation, operating hours, and a call to action. They deliver essential information like operating hours and service updates while making a strong first impression and showcasing your company’s branding and personality, especially in industries where this is crucial.
We recommend setting up a voicemail for your business phone system for incoming callers outside business hours. RingCentral, a cloud communications leader, offers an automated phone system with custom company greetings.
You can import a prerecorded audio file or record it using your phone or computer microphone. Plans start at $40 per user monthly, and all users get visual voicemail, voicemail transcriptions, and voicemail-to-email features.
Check your voicemails on the RingCentral Phone for Desktop. (Source: RingCentral)
RingCentral’s visual voicemail services enable users to quickly scan, prioritize, and manage voicemail messages through a convenient visual interface. Our comprehensive RingCentral review details this VoIP provider’s full range of features.
Tips for Professional Voicemail Greetings
Regardless of your industry and business size, prospective customers assess you the minute they contact your company. The best professional voicemail greeting for business gives off a positive image, boosts your credibility, and captures the most important details.
Voicemail is a crucial business phone feature that helps you make a great impression and increase caller confidence. Here are my tips to help you craft the best voicemail greetings.
- Use a script: Prepare a voicemail greeting script to guide you when recording your message. Outline all the important details you want to include so you won’t miss the essential points. Record like a pro, practice your spiel, and keep it conversational so it doesn’t sound too rehearsed.
- Keep it short: Your caller prefers speaking directly to you, so encountering voicemail can be frustrating. Get straight to the essential information to save time. Provide a clear, professional message and include a call to action that encourages the desired response from customers.
- Mention key information: Begin your message with your name to inform the caller that they reached the right person, and state clearly when they can expect a call back to manage their expectations. Mention your store hours or provide additional information like promotional offers.
- Offer other options: If your caller doesn’t want to leave a message or call back later, offer alternatives to resolve their issues immediately, such as visiting your website or calling a different number.
- Minimize ambient noise: Reduce background noise and distractions that could give clients a negative impression. Record your greeting in a quiet, interruption-free location without echoes, ensuring your message is the sole focus of your callers.
- Hire a professional: Consider hiring a voice actor to give your customers the best possible impression. Some business VoIP phone systems charge a minimal fee to hire a voice talent to record your phone greetings. A professional voicemail service ensures a consistent, polished message that leaves a great impression.
- Update your greeting regularly: You need more than good professional voicemail greetings. Refresh your message often to incorporate seasonal information and updates. This ensures your clients receive the latest information and keeps your greetings current, particularly for frequent callers.
Follow these simple steps to create the best business voicemail greetings and keep customers engaged and satisfied. Otherwise, a confusing voicemail message may prompt the caller not to leave a message or call you back. Get it right, and your business can leave a good impression.
Benefits of Good Voicemail Greetings
Handling business calls promptly and professionally is key to an excellent customer experience. However, answering every call is not always possible, especially during a holiday or after work hours. Let’s look at the advantages of voicemail greetings for your business phone line.
- They maintain customer communication: A professional voicemail greeting helps small businesses maintain customer engagement by encouraging callers to leave messages. This ensures you recover important leads when the business is unreachable. And it makes customers feel confident, valued, and more likely to stay connected despite your unavailability.
- They keep customer support intact: Telling callers that you will return their call after receiving their voicemail assures them that their efforts to contact your business won’t be in vain. Good voicemail greetings tell callers you care about their business and needs.
- They establish a good first impression: A voicemail provides a professional way to communicate with your customers when you cannot take calls. It tells customers you’re a legitimate business with systems to accommodate them. Having a good voicemail greeting helps maintain a consistent and polished brand image.
Call routing is a call management system that automatically distributes incoming calls based on predefined rules. You can use custom answering rules to forward nonurgent calls directly to your voicemail.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Funny voicemail greetings aren’t usually the best practice in business communication. However, if your brand’s image is on the nonconventional side, there are instances when funny voicemail greetings can work. Consider consulting a small group of customers to get their feedback first.
Voicemail greetings should be short and sweet, lasting 30 seconds or less. Keeping your message concise ensures callers receive the essential information without delay. This shows you respect their time and increases the likelihood they’ll leave a message.
When leaving a business voicemail message, it’s important to keep it brief, clear, and concise. It’s best to keep your message under a minute and focus on your purpose and objective. Identify yourself and your affiliation, state your purpose, and include your contact information. Avoid slang and humor, but be direct, polite, and friendly.
Bottom Line
Recording voicemail greetings helps establish credibility and professionalism and shapes your brand’s image. To create the best professional voicemail greetings, include a friendly greeting, your company name, a brief explanation, your operating hours, and a call to action. Small businesses benefit from well-crafted messages because they enhance the customer experience and reinforce your brand identity, fostering trust in every interaction.
Download our voicemail greeting templates and adjust them to suit your unique message to save time and effort. Use our templates as a starting point, and refer to our tips to ensure your voicemail leaves a positive impression and enhances your business communication.
