If First Impressions Are Everything, What Does Your Voicemail Say About You?

This is a pet peeve of mine as well. I changed my message awhile back and like it a lot better. But never music!

This is a pet peeve of mine as well. I changed my message awhile back and like it a lot better. But never music!

I also don't like annoying voicemails, but ringback tones are worse to me! They are very unprofessional and you are forced to listen to them if you want to get in contact with that person!

I also don't like annoying voicemails, but ringback tones are worse to me! They are very unprofessional and you are forced to listen to them if you want to get in contact with that person!

My outgoing voicemail message might be too long...

Because I like to tell people who call me at 9pm & 6am, that they are ridiculous and I won't call them back until regular business hours.

Mike, funny blog that isn't real funny.....I had a cabinet guy that I recommended...his ring back tone was some song about smoking dope and getting high.....now I have a new cabinet guy.

Mike:  Right there with you with the VM thing.  Clean, concise and professional is the only way to go.  One thing I really have a problem with is when you get someones VM and the message is still the canned response from the carrier...they never even bothered to set the mailbox up. ~ Doug

Your voicemail must be exciting

I'm all for raising the professional bar in our industry, and I'm often surprised by some of the voicemail greetings other agents have, so I agree with you. Mine's not necessarily the shortest, but it's to the point and gives clear instructions on what to expect. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

The worst Mike is you call them up, go into their voicemail, for business, and they never call you back.

Mike - I keep my voicemail message professional, short and to the point.  I definitely hate sitting through ones with music that I don't like.

I read a book recently that talked about how important your voice mail is. I think larry the cable guy in the background will def. give potential prospects the wrong idea. The standard boring voiceail however won't make them remember you! I'm still working on figureing out the best solution! I'll let you know what I come up with.

Mike, voice mail is a first impression when trying to get in touch with someone. What is funny and humorous to me may not be to a prospective client. I have the same issue with ring tones. Having to listen to some ones music blasting while they are trying to find their cell phone is pretty annoying.

Voicemail is an important part of your overall customer service. If it's Danny you call and Larry you get, then he did a poor job.

It has even been suggested to me that I should change my voicemail daily with my schedule so that clients know when I will call them back. However, I try to return calls as soon as I can so why change my voicemail daily?

We offer a list of contractors as a service for clients. Once a year or so, someone calls each person on that list to make sure they're still in business, it's still the best number, they haven't changed companies yet, etc. This year it was me.

Many times I called I'd go to voicemail. I really appreciated when the message was "Hi, you've reached _____ with _____ Companies. Please leave a message and I will call you back." It was so great! I knew who I called, I knew they were available, it was perfect. And in my case, I didn't even have to leave a message. But way too many messages were "The number 555-555-5555 (yep, that's who I called) is not available (no kidding!). Leave a message after the tone (usually when I leave it) or press (blahblahblah)..." That's to be expected. But sometimes I even got "Hey this is ______. Leave a message." Fine, except if you're running your own small business, maybe you should try to be a bit more professional about it. If it's a personal-slash-business phone, I still think your friends would understand. Courteous, informative, and not obnoxious...I'm with you on this one!

Julie

Since I use my cell phone for mainly business purposes now instead of personal, my message has been changed to something short and sweet.  I agree with your comments.  Thanks so much Mike.

By the way, pithy?  I hope you don't have a lisp...........LOL.

I recently met with a vendor at my home.  When his cell went off it went something like (insert redneck voice here "You know that annoying SOB you told me to tell you was callin, ya know the one that is so annoying, well he's callin man!"  Couldn't believe it.  I mean, funny, but in mixed company just out of line. I can tell you the contractor I won't be using.  Thanks for the post Mike!  I couldn't agree more.