Help Me Help You - How to Leave A Good Voice Mail Message

By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Aug 22, 2006

How is a voice mail message like a website? Websites suffering from poor usability cause unnecessary work, delays and frustration for the recipient. Poorly crafted voice mail messages yield the same results.

On an average day I receive about 20 voice mail messages and 80% of them are what Guy Kawasaki would consider good voice mail messages (read number 12 on his post), but the 20% that aren't good create extra work, delays and frustration.

As Guy states in his Ten Things to Learn This School Year blog post, the goal of any voice mail message is to

make progress along a continuom whose end is getting what you want.

I have a two column format in my Franklin Planner that I use to record the details of my voice messages. If a caller tells me his name, the urgency of his call, the specific information or action he is seeking and the best time for me to reach him, then I write the message in column A. If, on the other hand, the caller leaves a message like this, "Jason, this is Willy, call me back as soon as you can," then I write his name only in column B.

Like most people, I try to efficiently use my time during the work day. When it's time to return calls, I always tackle my "A" list first because I usually have enough details to research the topic and call back with an answer. Even if I get the person's voice mail, I can leave the answer, thus moving the process forward. Two phone calls and the issue is now history. Very efficient.

My column B calls are not nearly as efficient. Since I have no idea why Willy called, my first call is to simply ask Willy why he called. About 50% of the time, I land in Willy's voice mail when I return his call, but since I don't know why he called me, I cannot move the process forward. Instead, I have to leave this message, "Willy, this is Jason from InetSolution returning your call. I don't know the reason for your call, so please call me back. If you get my voice mail when you call, please tell me the reason for your call and share any details that will help me help you. You can reach me at...blah, blah, blah......" In this instance, the parties will make at least four phone calls to resolve the issue, often spanning two or more days. Very inefficient.

Guy offers good advice to help us use voice mail to more effectively get what we want. Before writing this, I listened to the 47 voice mail messages currently saved on my system (I deleted 32 of them that I no longer need) to identify common traits in the messages that I deemed good. In all of the good messages, the caller:

• Identified himself by first and last name
• Introduced the call with a "headline"
• Shared important, but not unnecessary details about the issue she was calling about
• Provided her phone number twice and at a speed that matched my writing
• Told me when I could reach him

Here's an example of one perfect voice message:

"Jason, this is John Doe at XYZ Company. It's Thursday, August 17th at 10:30 a.m. My phone number is (555) 555-1212. I need to send you an inventory export from our new database system, but I am not sure what format you'd prefer. We can export in CSV, Excel or XML format. I am leaving for a long weekend today at 4:00 p.m., so if you could call me back at (555) 555-1212 by 3:30 p.m. today, I would appreciate it. You can also email me your response at john.doe@xyzcompany.com, that's j o h n dot d o e @ x y z c o m p a n y dot com. If you get this message after 3:30 p.m. today, call my assistant Jane at the same number."