Voice Mail Etiquette

By Nancy Friedman

If your voice mail greeting has a message to your callers that says, "Go ahead and leave a message, and I'll RETURN YOUR CALL" – and you don't – you might want to rethink it, and maybe even re-record it.

Unreturned phone calls rank high on the frustration list. In fact, my company, Telephone Doctor, has stuck with the old fashion human message taking. Not that voice mail isn’t great for delivering one-way information. It’s super for that. But if a caller needs to have a call returned…and doesn’t get it…that’s a big Telephone Doctor “No No.”

If your voice mail greeting tells callers that you will return the call…then by gosh do it. If you’re not going to call them back, then change your message to say, “I’ll decide if I’m going to call you back or not” or “I may or may not call you back.” Don’t promise a call back, and then not deliver. It’s better to tell the caller up front that all calls might not get retuned.

Not returning a phone call is just plain rude. Like changing from lane-to-lane on the highway...and not using your turn signal.

“Yeah, but what if I don’t wanna call the person back? Or what if I’m so busy I don’t have time to call everyone back – I get a lot of calls.”

That happens to everyone but where does it say you are the one that has to make the call back? You can always delegate that call to someone else to return on your behalf.

Some people think that if they just don’t return the phone call, the person trying to reach them won’t call anymore. And that’s not what happens. That person will probably call several times, until they hear that you’re not interested, or it’s not the right time, or you’re the wrong person…they’ll keep calling. And it’s you who will get the bad reputation for not returning calls – not them for making the call.

So if your greeting is telling callers “you’ll call back” – either do it or re-record. It’s the nice thing to do.

Reprinted with permission of Telephone Doctor®, an international training company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in customer service and telephone skills. Nancy Friedman, president, is a KEYNOTE speaker at association conferences and corporate gatherings and is the author of four best selling books. Call 314‑291‑1012 for more information or visit the website at www.telephonedoctor.com.

Published in Networking Today, December 2002.