Professional Voicemail Greeting Examples: Twelve Scripts for Australian Businesses

The Four Part Recipe for Any Greeting

Every good voicemail greeting answers the four questions a caller has in the second after the phone stops ringing. Get these in, in this order, and the wording around them matters much less.

Part four is where most greetings fall down. "We'll get back to you as soon as possible" tells the caller nothing, and they know it. A specific promise such as "by the end of the day" or "first thing tomorrow morning" gives them a reason to wait instead of ringing your competitor. Only promise what you can keep, though. A missed callback promise does more damage than no promise at all.

Aim for around 20 seconds. At a normal speaking pace that is about 50 words, which is enough for the four parts and not much else. Anything that does not help the caller leave a useful message can go.

Main Business Line, During Business Hours

This is the greeting a caller hears when the office is open but every line is busy or nobody could get to the phone. It should sound like a short delay, not a closed door.

The "say so at the start" line in Script 1 is worth stealing. It lets callers sort themselves, so the urgent message gets heard first when someone works through the voicemail list.

After Hours Message Examples

After hours greetings carry one extra job: telling people when you are open again. Say your hours in plain spoken form ("eight thirty to five, Monday to Friday"), not in the shorthand you would print on a sign.

Script 4 only works if your phone system can actually send "press one" to a mobile on the weekend. If it can't, do not offer it. A greeting that promises an option that does nothing is worse than a plain message. Our guide to fixing missed after hours calls for tradies walks through the on call setup.

Public Holidays and the Christmas Close

Holiday greetings are the ones that go stale. The rule is simple: say when you are back, and switch the greeting off the day you return. Leaving "We're closed until the 2nd of January" running into February tells every caller that nobody is paying attention.

Two details make the Christmas greeting work. Give the return date with the day of the week, because people lose track of dates over the break. And if anyone really will check messages, say how often, so customers know whether to wait or try elsewhere. Our Christmas shutdown checklist for business phones covers the rest of the holiday setup, from diverts to the date you switch it all back.

A Person's Own Line

Staff greetings tend to be the worst in the building, because each person records their own in thirty seconds on their first day. Give everyone the same template so the business sounds consistent.

Script 8 deliberately does not invite a message. If nobody is listening to that mailbox for a fortnight, asking people to leave one just guarantees they wait two weeks for an answer.

Sole Traders and Tradies on the Mobile

When the business number rings your own mobile, the greeting has to do the work a receptionist would. It should also make clear this is a business, even though it is a mobile. If you run your business number on your mobile, our guide to setting up a business number on your mobile explains how to keep work and personal calls apart.

Asking for the suburb is a small thing that saves a callback. A tradie can tell from "Penrith, ceiling fan install" whether the job fits the week before ringing back, and the caller feels heard.

Clinics and Real Estate Agencies

Some businesses get calls where the greeting has to steer people before it asks for anything. In healthcare that means emergencies come first. In real estate it means sorting tenants with a problem from buyers and sellers.

Keep personal health detail out of the request. Name, number and date of birth are enough for reception to find the file. Asking callers to describe their condition on a voicemail creates a record you then have to handle carefully. For the rest of the front desk setup, see our guide to phone systems for medical, dental and allied health practices.

Pointing tenants to the urgent repairs contact in their lease matters, because a voicemail left overnight about a burst pipe is not a repair request anyone can act on until the morning. Our article on phone systems for real estate agencies covers routing those calls to a person instead.

When the Mailbox Is Not Checked

Sometimes the honest greeting is that nobody will hear a message: an old number kept alive during a move, a line that only exists for outbound calls, or a mailbox that is full. Tell callers where to go instead.

A full mailbox is worse than either. The caller hears that they cannot leave a message, and often nothing else. If your mailbox fills up regularly, it is telling you that messages are not being cleared, and that is a problem a greeting cannot fix. Voicemail to email, covered below, is usually the cure.

What to Cut From Your Greeting

Play your current greeting back and listen for these. Each one adds seconds without helping the caller.

• "Your call is important to us." Callers have heard it thousands of times and it now signals the opposite.
• "Leave a message after the tone." Everyone knows how voicemail works. Use the time to say what to leave instead.
• Long web addresses and email addresses spelt out letter by letter. Nobody can write them down while holding the phone. Say "on our website" and make sure the site is easy to find.
• Menu options repeated inside the voicemail. If someone has reached voicemail, they have already been through the menu.
• Dates that will go stale, such as "this week" or "until the 2nd". If you must use a date, set a reminder to change it the day it passes.
• Background noise from the workshop, the café or the car. Record somewhere quiet, or type the greeting and let text to speech read it.
• Jokes and music. Funny once, irritating on the third call. A friendly tone does the same job.

Recording It, or Typing It Instead

If you record your own greeting, stand up, smile and read it from the script rather than ad libbing. Standing changes how your voice sounds, and a smile is audible. Read it twice and keep the better take. Speak a little more slowly than you would in conversation, especially the business name and any number you give out.

The alternative is to type the greeting and have it read out. With Uniden Voice, text to speech reads your typed greeting and menu prompts in a natural voice, in a choice of languages. That makes the greetings in this article copy, paste and done, and it means changing the Christmas return date is a thirty second edit rather than a re-recording. It also keeps every greeting in the business sounding the same, which matters more than people expect when a caller is transferred between three people in one call.

Where Voicemail Belongs in Your Call Flow

The best voicemail greeting is the one fewer callers hear. Voicemail should be the last step in a flow, after the phone system has tried everyone it reasonably can. On Uniden Voice, the call flows that work best for most small businesses are one menu, then a group or a queue, then voicemail:

• A time condition checks the hour, the day and your holiday list, and picks the right greeting for you, so the after hours and public holiday scripts play on their own and switch back without anyone remembering.
• A ring group rings desk handsets, the mobile app and an ordinary mobile number together or one after another, so a call can reach someone on the road before it reaches voicemail.
• A call queue holds callers in order with your own greeting instead of an engaged tone, when a short wait is better than a message.
• Voicemail to email sends each message to the right inbox as an audio file, so it is heard on a phone between jobs rather than when someone remembers to dial in. Full mailboxes stop being a problem.

Our guide to designing a call flow goes through the whole sequence step by step.

There is also a step before voicemail that many businesses now use: an AI agent that answers when nobody else can. Uniden Voice AI Agents can answer the call, take the name, number and reason, book an appointment and email the details to the right person, so the caller has a conversation instead of a beep. If you are weighing that up, our guide to having AI answer your calls covers which calls suit it and which still need a person.

Want to try the apps first? The desktop app and mobile app both run in your browser, no download needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to Read Next