New Phone. Need to record message for answering machine.

Old Phone died.

I need to record a message for a new phone voice mail.

I want to say:

“You have reached xxx yyy zzzz. Please leave a message after the tone. Thank you”

I have never had to do this before as previously the phone company had a prerecorded message.

I do not want to give a lot of information, neither do I want to say I will call back, as likely I will not - especially if it is someone I do not know.

I do not want to say I am not home.

Does my proposed message seem rude or abrupt?

Of course, I do not want to sound either rude or abrupt, but neither do I want a long "song and dance’’ phone message.

Home phone only - no business connections.

Any thoughts?

Mine says “This is (Stpauler)”. That’s it. Voicemail has been around long enough that people should know how to use it by themselves now.

stpauler,

I tend to agree with you in principal, but I wonder just how many of us still stutter and stumble when we encounter voice mail.

I just want a simple “heads-up” you are talking to my machine, not me.

KB

“You’ve reached 123-4567, please leave a message”. BEEP

X and Y can’t come to the phone right now, leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Our standard greeting for years.

That is pretty much what I say, it helps the caller to know if they’ve got the right number. back in the day we used to try to be artsy, cutesy, clever, or cryptic. Then answering machines lost their novelty and we went the Stpauler route realizing that the beep just begged the question. But then peeps still didnt’ get it, so back to square one.

You should get Carl Kassel to do it Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

I like to go with:

“Hello? [long pause] Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not here. Leave a message. beep

I find it tends to discourage the superfluous messages. Caller ID will still tell me who called.

What’s wrong with “You have reached xxx yyy zzzz. Please leave a message after the tone. Thank you”? My mobile voicemail greeting says “Leave a message” and the answering machine at home has the pre-recorded greeting that came with the phone.

I think that’s fine. I think by far the most important things for a voicemail message should be (1) about 2 seconds long, so they don’t have to wait too long, but get a second to get ready before the beep (2) accurate (3) clearly a voicemail message not a real person (normally a tone of voice will indicate this).

I think “leave a message” is fine: most people know perfectly well what voicemail is. I personally find it annoying if the message says “i’m not here at the moment” when in fact, I know much more common legitimate reasons are that they’re busy, or can’t hear the phone, etc.

When I’ve had to record my own voicemail message, I’ve used that verbatim. Anybody that knows me will recognize my voice, anybody that doesn’t will at least know what number they reached.

However, “Believe it or not, George isn’t at home…” is pretty funny, if you can sing. (And like Seinfeld bits)

Unless your callers are Luddites or ignorant, they probably know the drill. That’s why I get annoyed at messages that go on forever like “To leave a message, press zero or just stay on the line. When you are finished, press 1 or hang up. If you know your party’s extension, you can dial it at any time. For other options, press 9. If you need immediate assistance, dial 1. For cleanup in aisle 2, dial 3 followed by the first letter of the last name of the person who dropped the jar of pickles…”

Keep it simple, stupid.

At times, mine has been as short as: “You know what to do” BEEP

You hit the nail square on the head. This is exactly right

All answers read with appreciation.

Thanks all, I will go for simplicity.

KB.