Improve your business communications through strong voicemail first impressions. There are two parts and both are equally important to practicing proper voicemail etiquette.

The first involves leaving impressive voicemails. Since the work world is hectic and many important calls are often missed, make sure your voicemail stands out from the others and give your potential employer or client a reason to return your call. Here are some helpful tips to make that happen.

  1. Speak with a smile. Let’s start with the basics. You don’t want to speak too fast or too quietly. Make sure the recipient of your voicemail gets the idea that you’re a bright, charismatic, and professional individual who is worth calling back.
  2. Keep it short. Between projects and meetings, people tend to spend the least amount of time listening to voicemails as possible. Who wants to spend their day listening to long winded voicemails anyway? The golden time frame? Try to keep your voicemail around 15-17 seconds long.
  3. Clearly state your purpose for calling. Make sure the person you are calling knows exactly what you want and what to address when they return your call.

The second part to improve your business communications with prospective clients is by using YouMail.

  1. Greet callers by name. Just like you want to address the person you’re leaving a voicemail for by name, do the same with your missed callers. YouMail’s Smart Greeting greets all contacts by name to make voicemails seem less like a machine and more like the beginning of a conversation. Use the Business Greeting to also give callers your company name. Your professionalism is one reason to get a client interested in working with you.
  2. Return missed calls quickly. Just as you want to leave short voicemails, you also want to make sure you return voicemails in a timely fashion. Use YouMail’s Auto-Reply to notify callers of when you’ll be available to speak to them so that they know their call is important to you and you’ll be in touch with them soon.
  3. Sort through your voicemails and prioritize. When you have a list of voicemails to go through and need to return multiple calls, make sure you make the most important calls first. With YouMail’s Voice to Text, read through your voicemails to make this task easier and faster to do.

We hope that these voicemail tips help you take charge of your business communications. Now that you have some insight on how to make and take care of voicemails, it’s time to start making some calls. Or start going through some of the ones you received over the weekend… Happy Monday!