Shownotes:

I often try to convince people of the merits of using the telephone to communicate with people rather than sending an e-mail. But often the person they are trying to contact is unavailable and so they must leave a message; a voicemail.

Given that very few organisations offer guidance on how to leave a professional and effective voicemail many people leave the same type of messages that they would do in their private lives. This leads to much wasted time in ineffectual telephone tennis.

This podcast aims to provide the guidance needed and if you consider how many voicemails you will leave over your lifetime, this podcast alone while save you a tremendous amount of time. Time you can spend on yourself or on your family.

 

The Basics

* Why Do We Use Voicemail

* Not Everyone Has a Secretary

* To Allow Non Face to Face Voice Communication

* Conversation Must Progress

* Stop Playing Phone Tennis

* Joint Objective to Reach an Objective

* Treat Them Like E-mails

* Always Professional Content – Same As Emails!

* It Is Not Private They Are All Stored

* Only Talk about Work Topics

* Duration is Brief

* 3 Minutes is the MAXIMUM

* 1 Minute is Often Too Long

 

The Components

* One Word Greeting

* Their Name

* Your Name

* Your Message

* Remember to Progress the Conversation by…..

* Answering Their Questions

* Asking Your Own Questions

* Making Suggestions or Recommendations

* Your Number

* Every Time

* Prefaced with ‘My number is….’ to Alert the Listener