Netherlands
Belgium
Denmark
Germany
France
United States
Austria
UK
Spain
Italy“Do I have the right number?”
That is what a caller wonders in the three seconds before someone answers. One sentence removes the doubt, and the best part is that while they hear it, your phone is already ringing. So the greeting costs them nothing.
What happens at the same time
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The greeting plays, and at the same moment the call is already on its way to your phone. So by the time the sentence ends, someone is ready, and the caller hasn't waited a single extra second to hear it.
Three things you can say in one sentence
It is the only point in the call where you know for certain that everyone is listening. Don’t waste it on “your call is important to us.”
That they have the right number
Without a greeting, a caller only hears the ringing and doesn’t know until “hello?” whether they have reached the right company. With a greeting they know after two words.
“Good afternoon, you have reached Carter & Associates.”
What they need to know before the call
That the call is being recorded, for example. This is where that belongs, not halfway through and not in the fine print on your website.
“This call is recorded for quality and training purposes.”
What is happening right now
Closed between Christmas and New Year’s, a move, new business hours. Changing one line of text is enough, and it saves your team giving the same explanation thirty times.
“We are closed from December 25 through January 1.”
Three ways, and most people choose the same one
The message is an audio file, and the platform doesn’t care how it gets there. What does matter is how quickly you can change it next time, because that is where recorded messages fall apart.
Type it
You type the text into the text-to-speech assistant, choose a voice and a language, and it is done. Different next week? Then you type it differently.
No limit, as often as you like. In other languages too.
Record it yourself
You record it on your own phone. It sounds like you, and that suits a small business where the caller recognizes the voice.
Downside: every change means recording it again.
A voice actor
A professional records it. The best sound, and also the most expensive and slowest route when something has to change.
Downside: new business hours mean a new recording.
That difference is not cosmetic. Almost every out-of-date welcome message we come across was recorded, not typed. Not because nobody wanted to update it, but because it was an afternoon’s work. A message you can change in thirty seconds stays accurate.
Four choices, and the first is about length
How long it lasts
Under five seconds. Your phone is already ringing in the meantime, so a long greeting means someone answers while the caller is still listening to a recording.
Read it aloud and count along. If you go over five, there is something in it the caller doesn’t need.
What goes in it, and in what order
Company name first, because that is what the caller is waiting for. Only then the extras: a recording notice, a closure, an announcement.
“Your call is important to us” says nothing and costs a second and a half of the five you have.
A different message for each number
Your US number in English, your Mexican one in Spanish, your support line different from your sales line. Every number has its own greeting.
Callers to a local number expect the local language. One English greeting for every country is the cheap solution, and it shows.
When you change it
Holidays, a move, a promotion. A change is live right away, so you can switch it on the day itself rather than a week ahead.
Set a reminder to switch it back after the holidays. That is where it usually goes wrong.
In every plan, even for one person
The welcome message comes standard, at no extra cost, with every plan, from Business Number to Customer Service.
This feature works on all of our phone numbers, so you never have to choose between functionality and reach.
About the welcome message
No, and that is the nice thing about it. While the message plays, your first phone is already ringing. So when the sentence ends, someone can answer right away, and the greeting doesn’t cost the caller a single extra second.
Immediately. You edit the text, generate it again, and the next caller hears the new version. No support ticket, no waiting.
Yes. Every number has its own greeting, so your US number and your Mexican number can each open in their own language, with the same team behind them.
Yes, that is a different greeting on the same number, linked to your business hours. That way someone who calls at eight in the evening hears right away when you are open again.
There are three ways: you record the message yourself on your phone, have it recorded by a voice actor, or generate it in seconds with our text-to-speech assistant. All three options can be changed at any time.
Yes, many businesses use the welcome message to let callers know that calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes. This is common practice for businesses.
Yes, you can set a different message for each number, or easily generate messages in several languages with the text-to-speech assistant, each time with a natural-sounding voice.
