Business voicemail greetings can give your clients a professional and articulate impression of your business when your office is closed or the phone can't be answered. Customized voicemail greetings also help to convey important information like business hours, closings, services and promotions. Utilizing voicemail customized greetings keeps your business running even when clients can't talk to you.

Voicemail greetings for businesses need to be more professional and contain more information than personal greetings. Customized voice mail greetings can be used as a means of presenting your business in a professional manner at all times. When utilizing voice mail: customized greetings applications and uses, make sure you:

1. Create personalized voicemail greetings for your business.

2. Use custom greetings for voicemail to convey important business information.

3. Create a business voicemail greeting that's polished and professional.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Represent your business with customized greetings for voicemail

Your professional voicemail greeting will be heard by clients, colleagues, and supervisors that call after hours or when all lines are in service. It's important to create a customized voice mail greeting that is articulate and professional but that also makes the caller feel that their call is important and will be returned. Create voicemail greeting for your business that lets customers know you value them.

I recommend: Ringcentral gives business owners the freedom to create a custom voicemail greeting and utilize features like internet fax, call logs, and call routing to multiple lines. Grand Central allows you to create customized greetings for voicemail with a personalized message for each of your regular clients.

Convey business information with customized voicemail greetings

It's important that clients have access to information about your business such as hours of operation, services offered, and driving directions, even when the office is closed. One way to do this is with customized voicemail greetings that relay this information or reroute the caller to an operator that can supply them with the pertinent information.

I recommend: Protege Voice offers live operator backup so callers can choose to leave a voicemail message to be returned or speak to an operator for information. PacificTel offers this explanation for how the many uses of business voicemail can benefit your business and increase your customer base.

Leave a good impression with a professional customized voicemail greeting

It's important that clients and colleagues that hear your voicemail greeting are left with a good impression of you and your business. Your customized business voicemail greeting should be clear, concise, articulate and professional. Leave a good impression by recording a business voicemail that lets callers know the quality of your business.

I recommend: SCORE, counselors to small business owners, offers these suggestions for using business voicemail greetings effectively. BusinessKnowHow.com provides more suggestions for ways to use customized voicemail greetings to convey business information and give callers the option to speak to an operator, leave a message or place an order.

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.

Customized greetings for voice mail are recorded messages that can greet customers and clients as well as highlight features and services of businesses. There are many types of voice mail services that business owners and managers can use that offer features such as customized voice mail messages for specific callers so that they will receive a personal voice mail message each time they call. Since there are so many features to customized voice mail services, it is important for business owners and managers to learn the key terms used for them to select the features that best suit business needs. Learn the key terms for customized voice greetings services to begin using this messaging for your business.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Virtual PBX

Virtual PBX is an automated phone system used by many businesses. Its features include call waiting, call routing, customizable voice mail, fax and follow-me calling. Virtual PBX systems give users the ability to have fully automated phone systems without the expense of corporate phone systems.

I recommend: Read the information about the Virtual PBX system featured at Onsip Hosted PBX.

Auto-attendant

An auto-attendant is an automated operator used in PBX systems that gives a customized greeting to callers and then transfers calls to extensions or voice mail. Many businesses use auto-attendants for heavy phone traffic to relieve or replace live operators.

I recommend: Learn about the custom voice auto attendant services offered at Jeffsounds.

Visual voice mail

Visual voice mail is a service that lets users see who has called them on their computers or cell phone. Users can customize images for each caller or use photographs that pop up every time that person calls. Some phone systems let users create customized voice mail messages for a personal greeting for callers each time they call.

I recommend: Gather information about visual voice mail services provided by YouMail.

Generic and custom voice mail greetings

Generic and custom voice mail greetings are recorded messages used for business and personal voice mail services. Generic voice mail messages are standard greetings recorded by voice over talent. Custom greetings offer users the ability to insert their personal or business names in voice mail greetings. This is a great option for business owners who are too busy to create their own voice mail greetings.

I recommend: Browse through the listing of generic and custom voice mail greetings at MyVoiceOverGuy.

Voice over talent

Voice over talent actors provide many services to businesses including customized voice mail greetings, radio jingles and narration for television and radio commercials. Business owners can either create a voice mail script for voice over talent to record or have one written for them.

I recommend: Find out about using voice over talent to record customized voice over greetings at Marketing Mania Inc.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an interactive technology that detects voice and keypad inputs on computers to interact with callers and route calls either to voice mail boxes or live operators. Depending on how an IVR is set up, there are customized greetings for voice mail, fax, call back and other types of media.

I recommend: Review the information about the customized voice mail messages and on hold music used in Interactive Voice Response (IVR) at On Hold Productions.