In order to effectively market yourself and your business, there are a few basic tools that you will need to have perfected. You may not be thinking that your telephone skills are of much importance, but a good or bad voicemail message could make or break a professional opportunity. If you find that your personal voicemail is pretty blase or not even set up yet, you might need to check out these tips and tricks to make a great personal voicemail message.
These tips will guarantee that you make a great impression and maybe even get someone to leave a message or two.
Get Rid of Background Noise
Find a quiet space to begin recording your message. Don’t be afraid to re-record if something goes amiss during the middle of your message, like if the dog starts barking or if your toddler starts calling for you. Nothing about a noisy background says that you’re a professional. Background noise is also distracting and can confuse a caller.
Identify Yourself
If you’re getting phone calls from people other than your grandmother, then they probably aren’t going to recognize that it is you by just hearing your voice. Letting people know your name and even the name of your business lets them know right away that they have reached the right number. And as an added bonus, it lets callers with the wrong number know that they’ve reached the wrong person and you won’t have to listen to messages for strangers.
It’s an instant vetting process.
Have Fun
This is the time to show your personality. People are more at ease with someone with a bit of excitement in their voice because it shows that they are capable of holding a conversation. Just because you want to come off as professional does not mean you need to come off as monotone or unapproachable. If you’re funny, you could even add a joke to your message. Just be sure that you sound approachable and warm.
Specify What You Want To Hear
Letting callers know to leave their name and number so you can call them back is an excellent way to get the right information that you may need from someone that you missed a call from. Otherwise, you might be left with a number with no name to ask for or vice versa. If you run a business and want to include something that usually comes up in professional phone calls, include that as well. For example, if people often ask you to check on business orders, ask them to leave the shipping number so you can get back to them with a ready response.
Smile
Smiling while you record your voicemail message can actually be heard on the other end of the line. People speak differently when they’re smiling and callers can tell if you’re unhappy. When you greet someone in person, it is usually done with a smile so your voicemail greeting should be no different.
Rehearse It
It might be a short voicemail message that you’re recording, but you do want to make sure you hit all the bullet points. It also helps to speak eloquently over the phone and that works better when you are prepared with what you’re about to say. You are trying to sell yourself in this message so put your best foot forward. If you practice and write down what you’re going to say, you can get rid of all the awkward pauses, ums, and stumbling over words.
Update Regularly
Don’t keep the same old voicemail greeting forever. Not just because it can get stale and boring, but because you’re missing out on the opportunity to let people know what you’re up to. If your business is having a sale, be sure to update your voicemail with that information. Or if you plan on being out of town for a few days, let people know that their phone calls will not be returned until the date that you return.
Get Voicemail to Email Service from Global Call Forwarding
We just shared a couple of awesome tips for recording voicemail greetings. Now you’ll have to decide what to do with your voicemails as they get recorded.
The best solution would be to forward your voicemail messages to an email address. This gives you a way to download the recordings and forward them along to friends. We offer a voicemail to email service that is available with all our numbers.
Give us a call if you want to learn more about it!
