Don’t Fill the Customer’s
Voice Mail–Box with Messages
“Hello, it’s me again. Sorry to keep leaving messages on your answering machine, but I just thought of something else I needed to tell you.” Does this sound like the telephone messages that your customers receive from you? If you have ever experienced multiple messages from the same person on your answering machine or voice mail–box, you know how irritating this can be. This causes the customer receiving these messages a number of difficulties. First, because the messages are heard by the receiver one at a time, usually in the order in which they are received, it can be like investigating clues in a cheap paperback murder mystery! You get important information in bits and pieces and have to put them together into some kind of logical manner. Second, there is a limited amount of storage space available on their voice mail–box or answering machine. If you fill it with all of your messages, there won’t be any room for anyone else’s. This probably won’t make the customer very happy. An third, it can be very tedious to listen to long messages that don’t seem to ever make their point.
To avoid having to leave multiple or lengthy messages on your customer’s voice mail–box or answering machine, use the following message organizer:
Telephone Message Organizer
Before leaving a message or messages on a customer’s telephone voice mail–box or answering machine, answer the following questions to help you more effectively and efficiently communicate this information.
A. What are the most important points you want to make in your message?
1) ______________________________________
2) ______________________________________
3) ______________________________________
B. Is there any related information that you need to communicate to the customer that you should include or reference in this message?
C. Practice the 2-Minute Challenge:
Practice sending this message to yourself in 2 minutes or less. If you can’t say everything in less than 2 minutes, go back to steps A and B and make your message more concise and to the point. If this is not possible, consider sending the message via some other means such as a “live” telephone conversation, face-to-face meeting, conference call, video conference, letter, e-mail, etc.