Ok so I get a lot of bad phone messages and effective Voice Mail will make people react to your questions more promptly.. I leave many phone messages. My biggest pet peeve when people leave phone messages is how they leave it. A bad voice mail messages are… this is “Jane I am calling about…. (rattle off something 45 seconds) 30….3012″hang up. I get a lot of this from school people calling asking me to volunteer.
This is ineffective because:
- I am calling you and you said your number so quickly I have to listen to the all 60 of the message to hear the phone number just so I can call you and to have you tell me the issue again. Myself I am slow to process stuff I have to write down.. so if you speak quickly I do not get all the numbers. so Take it down a notch speedo
- You are not going to talk me in to do something in a voice mail, wait for my call to ask give it the personal touch.
- If you can’t leave a deceit phone message I really might thing this person is an idiot and I don’t want to work with them any way.
- If you frustrate someone they are less likely to call you back. This is really important for suppliers and people looking for a job. I have hired alot of people over the years and the quickest way to not get hired is be annoying.. that and a glitter resume (really it happen to me once)
- If I have to listen to a voice mail 3 times to get a number and it is at the end of a long rambling message it is a waste of time, as Moms, Business People, and 50 million other things we do we do not have the time.
Step for an Effective Voice Mail
- State your name
- slowly say your phone number
- state general reason for call briefly
- then restate name
- and restate phone number again slowly
If you do the world we will be a happy place and less frustrated people get upset because having to listen to a voice mail message more then one let alone 3 times to get the number you are too busy to slow down and say.
So what are your phone pet peeve?