Thoughts on effective voicemail

[yesthattom]

• End with the phone number, nothing else. I once was told that if you end a message by saying your phone number followed by "goodbye" or any other words, it's more difficult for the person to remember your number. The last words interrupt the person's memory-recording process. Therefore I always end with the phone number, even if it means saying, "I look forward to hearing from you. xxx-yyy-zzzz " It only sounds odd the first 1,000 times you do it.
  
• Record the phone number early in the message. Most voicemail systems make it difficult to surf around the message, and even users of the systems that don't have this problem usually don't have the training to know that the feature exists or what buttons to push. However, re-playing the message from the start is easy. I hate having to listen to a 3 minute message to catch a number at the end. (Ever notice that the longer the message, the more likely someone will try to interrupt you right when the critical bit of information FINALLY plays again?). Therefore I usually start with, "Hi! This is xxx at xxx-yyy-zzzz."
  
• Avoid phone-tag by saying why you called, or by asking for something. If phone tag means your goal won't be reached until the 4th iteration of calls, save yourself one iteration by saying what you want in the message. I often record a message like, "I have a feeling that we're going to play phone-tag, so to save one iteration let me say that I need xyz." Now the person can call me back prepared.
  
• Keep is short. I find that over-sharing on a message bites me in the future, or I end up leaving message after message with updates. It's difficult to find the ballance between leaving too much info and too little. If I'm going to ask for something that needs a lot of explanation, something complicated, don't try to do it in a non-interactive medium like a recorded message. However do say what you are calling about. "I have question about the xyz. I need to get your advice about who the right person to talk with is. Can we talk?"
  
• Always leave a message, even a no-op message. In business, I'm often caught in the situation of claiming, "but I called and you weren't there!" with no audit trail to back me up. So, instead, I always leave a message. However, if I'm leaving a message just to prove that I called, I just leave a no-op message: "Hi! This is xxxxxx, please call me at xxx-yyy-zzzz." Otherwise, I may over-share and get in trouble. It's really just a timestamp, so just leave a timestamp. "Hi. It's Tom trying to reach you at hh:mm."
  

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

include your phone number twice in the message. that way, they don't have to rewind/replay. or not as much, anyways.

"hi, this is foo from bar baz and co, 111-222-3456, looking to talk to you about our monkey and the banana inventory issues we've been having. my number again: 111-222-3456."

[ceo]

A couple more from my days in the tech support trenches:

Never leave more than a 1-bit message with a human, other than a callback request.

If you're intentionally calling someone in a different time zone outside their work hours so you can give your bad news to their voicemail, make sure it's their work number and not their home number. Especially if you're calling three time zones west first thing in the morning. =:-O

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I can't say how much I agree with the "Always leave a message" item. I had a vendor who had a habit of making hang-up calls. The caller ID captured her number, but then she'd just hang up on the voice mail system. I found that _so_ unprofessional.

[geminigirl]

Be careful of confidentiality when you leave messages. That's probably a bigger issue for someone who does the kind of work I do than for many other people, but it's a big thing here.

Also, you never know when someone's going to listen to messages on speakerphone. Just remember that when you think about what you say.

[usqueba.livejournal.com]

Avoid phone-tag by saying why you called, or by asking for something.
My sisters leave this message, "Hi, it's me. Call me". 99.99% of the time, they could have left a message, but NOOOOOO, they make me call them back for a 20 second comment.

Keep is short.
There's less opportunity to ramble. I hate leaving voice mail. I always feel stupid (even when I know/plan what I'm going to say) so I try to keep it short keep my babbling to a minimum.

[auntiemisha.livejournal.com]

This is going into your next book, yes?

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Do not leave your number very rapidly while slurring the syllables, assuming that since it's boring to you, it will be boring to whoever's listening.

I'm working now with someone who does that. By now I've memorized the number, but the first 8 times or so he left a message it was quite annoying.