One in an occasional series on professionalism:
Creating voicemail greetings is becoming an ignored art. Too often, we call a tutor and get, “The user has not set up their voicemail,” or a robot voice will invite you to leave a message for “404-xxx”, a phone number which leaves you guessing as to whether you have reached the right number.
Ideally, all our tutors will leave a professional voicemail message,
“Hello, you’ve reached <tutor name>. I’m sorry to have missed your call, please leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”
Even better from our viewpoint but totally optional would be
“Hello, you’ve reached <tutor name>, a coach for HomeworkCoach. I’m sorry to have missed your call, please leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”
Please fix your voicemail. Avoid jokey greetings, they are unprofessional and even your friends will get bored with them really quickly. A bad greeting can really hurt your chances with any recruiter or person contacting you for professional reasons (read this article).
It’s not hard to record a greeting, Typically, just call your voicemail and listen for the option to change your message. On my AT&T phone you get to the menu by pressing * then 4.
And while we are on the topic, do not let your voicemails build up. Speaking personally, there is nothing that drives me more crazy that a message that the user’s voicemail is full. I am not saying that this would cause us to stop offering you tutoring assignments; it won’t. But yes, it does impact our enthusiasm for making you the first coach we call.
Thanks for reading. Comments below are welcome.
Dennis Freeman
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