Mailbox Greetings

Using the Voice Mail System

Using Mailbox Greetings Effectively

There are two types of mailbox greetings: “permanent” and “temporary”. You record the permanent greeting when you access your mailbox the first time. Temporary greetings override the permanent greeting for the specified duration. If there is no temporary greeting, callers accessing your mailbox will hear the permanent greeting.

Note: Your administrator may have programmed your mailbox to play a standard company greeting—for example, "Welcome to ABC Corporation. That extension is not available. Please leave a message."—for callers instead of a personal greeting. If so, you will still be prompted to record a personal greeting even though it won't be used.

A permanent greeting cannot be very specific because it is worded to cover all situations. To address specific situations, create a temporary greeting that will last until you turn it off or for a specified number of days.

Two examples of temporary greetings are

“Hi! You have reached Julie Jones. I'm on vacation from Friday, June 18, through Friday, June 25. I'll be back on Monday, June 28, so please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If you require immediate assistance, press 0 and ask to be transferred to Christine Conner.”

“This is Harry Smith, and today is Thursday, May 13. I have a meeting all day today so I will not be available to answer calls. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you tomorrow.”

You can change your temporary greeting anytime you wish to let callers know about any schedule changes. It's a good idea to create a temporary greeting every day—it shows callers that you really do use voice mail. You can also leave the name of a backup person if you will not be available to answer calls.

About Bilingual Greetings

Callers to a bilingual system can change the language of the spoken prompts by pressing the Language toggle key. This does not change the language of your greeting. Contact your Administrator for more information.

If your system is bilingual, you may want to record a bilingual greeting. You can use this example as a guide (in this example, the Language toggle key is 8):

“You have reached Christine Conner. Vous avez joint la boîte vocale de Christine Conner. I can't answer the phone right now, so please leave your name, number, and a short message. Je ne peux prendre votre appel pour le moment. Veuillez composer le 8 et laisser votre nom et numéro, ainsi qu'un court message. If you need immediate assistance, press 0. Pour obtenir de l'aide immédiatement, composez le 0.