Home » Posts tagged 'Voicemail'

What is Virtual Voicemail & How Does It Work?

When looking for a convenient way to manage your phone calls, you may have come across the term “virtual voicemail” or “cloud voicemail.” But how does it work and what are the benefits of using an online voicemail service? Read on to learn more.

Virtual Voicemail: Definition & Benefits

Voicemail is a virtual number feature that enables users to receive voicemails online in the form of an email address. Virtual voicemails — also known as cloud voicemail or hosted voicemail — are stored in the cloud. By doing so, you and your teams can access voicemails from your phone, work computer, or laptop and store them for future use.

1. Get Voicemails the Way You Want it

So, how does virtual voicemail work? There are a few different ways hosted voicemail functions. However the most common is the email forwarding feature. This feature forwards voicemails directly to your email or even two email addresses listed on your account.

Users that have access to these emails can access the voicemail through their email inbox on their phone, office computer, home laptop, etc. Some providers not only forward the voicemail to the inbox but also provide a transcript or voicemail preview. This is also known as transcription.

Visual voicemail lets you “see” voicemail messages so that you can identify and focus on messages with the highest priority. Not all voicemails may be important. Scanning them can help you prioritize your actions.

virtual voicemail

2. Access Voicemails Anywhere

Most businesses struggle with voicemails as they receive hundreds of messages per day along with the regular call traffic. However, customers who leave voicemails usually have a sole purpose. Most likely, it is because they have an important issue or inquiry. Losing these messages or not paying equal attention to them may cost you valuable customers.

By using a virtual voicemail feature, ensure that your team can access important and urgent voicemails from anywhere. Cloud voicemails come with an audio attachment and transcript or preview. This lets your team know what the message is about and determine how quickly they need to respond.

3. Utilize Cloud Storage

A voicemail inbox can only store so many messages at a time. However, if your business has been operating for years and has long-term customers, then you will want to save any and all documentation of customer interaction.

Here is where cloud storage proves useful. Save your virtual voicemail messages online and store them for longer periods of time. Additionally, since they are stored in the cloud, if your device or equipment changes, you will still have access to these messages.

Get Voicemail to Email with Global Call Forwarding

Global Call Forwarding’s Voicemail to Email feature lets you access and manage voicemail messages when it is most convenient for you. Additionally, by going virtual, you can enable customers to interact with your business 24/7. This is because their voicemail gets forwarded to your email where there is no limit. Get voicemail to email with any of our virtual phone number plans and adjust settings through your control panel to suit your individual needs. Sign up today on our homepage or call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 to learn more!

Tips For Recording a Personal Voicemail Message

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.

tips for recording a personal voicemail
Source: Stockphoto.com O#1202 – ID#100133781710

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!