A friend of mine has a blog about the photography business. She explained that she frequently contacts other photographers all over the state and is somewhat amazed at how bad some voice mail messages can be. In some cases people speak to fast. In other cases they ramble. In some cases the messages are just difficult to understand. Here is her short post with some quick tips to improve your voice mail message.

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As an consultant to many small businesses in my work as an advertising sales person at REACH Magazine, I have to analyze what needs to be fixed to improve the chances that advertising will work for my clients. If phones are answered in an unprofessional manner or if phones go to voice mail or answering machines, there is a good chance that no matter how effective my advertising is, the advertising will not work for the client. REALLY!!!!

I go one step further than Christine regarding voice mail

After you take Christine’s advice and make your outgoing message, short and sweet and understandable consider this.

If someone is calling you for the first time, it is almost critical for them to talk with a real person. How do you accomplish that as a small business? I frequently suggest that small businesses that do not have a receptionist to hire an answering service. For $20-$30 per month a small business can increase the effectiveness of their advertising investments by 100% or more.

Consumers and first time clients do NOT like voice mail

You see, todays consumers do not want to play phone tag with you. Consumers today are very busy and if they get a voice mail message on the other end of the line they also tend to have concerns pop up over the quality of the company they are calling. If someone calls you as a result of your advertising or after looking at your web site, they still do not know you and this increases the likelihood that the will not leave a message. With a REAL person answering the phone, more people are willing to leave a message. If your advertising brings you 10 phone calls, wouldn’t you like to receive more of them? Wouldn’t you rather receive 8 or 9 of them instead of 1 or zero? That’s how much difference having a REAL person answer the phone can make.

A good answering service will answer politely with the name of your business. They will explain that you are not currently available to answer the call because you are with another client or working on a project for a client. They will ask when would be the best time to call you back and they will politely ask for the phone number of the prospective new client.

Too many small businesses are under the impression that they actually receive most of the calls that come in

Another service that I offer for clients is call tracking. You’ve heard those messages that say, “this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.” when you have called various businesses. Well, as a small business, we can set up one of those for your advertising. You will be able to determine how many hang-ups you get from your advertising (many consumers hang-up on answering machines and voice mails before any message can be recorded).

You will also be able to determine how your phones are being answered because call tracking records every conversation for your review at a later time. Are your prospects being politely answered and calmly listened to or do your employees give them short shrift? You will know if your employees need more training or if you may even need to replace someone. If you “depend” on your voice mail or answering machine you will see just how much that is hurting your business.

Alternative message for outgoing voicemail

I like what Christine said about a simple and clear message for your out-going voicemail message. For small businesses that are unwilling to consider an answering service, I make one more suggestion. In the outgoing message, if you can do this it will improve the number of people willing to leave a message. I suggest that this short phrase be added to the message: “I am currently talking with another customer, but I should be able to call you back within a few minutes, could you please leave your phone number and I will call you right back.” For my small home remodeling contractors who refuse to sign up for an answering service, this can be effective. For example a roofing contractor might say, ” Thank you for you call, I may be on a ladder or on a roof, you wouldn’t want me to fall because I quickly answered my phone. Could you please leave your phone number and I will call you as soon as I am safe and sound on the ground?”

You can be creative with your out-going phone message, but you have to be clear an understandable as was mentioned on the other blog.

Your business could fail because of how you handle this one issue

I have had companies spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on advertising only to find out that they fell down in this one area. I might have one company that handles phones well say, “Wow, REACH is fantastic advertising…I closed this much business last month from the ad we ran!” Another similar type of business with a similar ad, but who falls down on this one area might say, ” Did that ad ever go out? I don’t think I got anything from my ad.”

As you know, businesses can fail because of their weakest link. In far many cases it is because of something so simple as how the phone gets answered. Such a simple thing to correct, but many small businesses fail because they don’t think this is that important.

It does not matter how good your advertising is. It does not matter how effective your SEO on your web site is. If your phones are not handled correctly, your business could fail.

Peter DeMott • REACH Magazine in Dayton Ohio • pdemott@reachusa.com • 937-478-6222