How to Leave a Phone Message, Part II

Above is the podcast on leaving a phone message that I did with Carl Kasell. In my previous blog post I discussed leaving a good voicemail greeting. Now let's talk about how to leave a good phone message for someone else.

For some advice, I turned to Marie Nelson, my supervisor over at Tell Me More. I figured it's always good to know what your boss will respond to best in a voicemail. Here are three things Marie says are important:

1) Make sure you pronounce the person's name right. Saying Maria instead of Marie isn't close enough.

2) Don't ramble (try to keep your message to 60 seconds or less).

3) Script it out if needed. It's a good way to make sure you get all your points across. Even Carl Kasell admitted to doing this sometimes.

Those are great ideas, especially when you're leaving work messages. Here's what I would do for messages you leave outside the office.

1) Be nice. Remember you're leaving something that can be played back repeatedly so don't say anything that might embarrass you if other people should happen to hear it. Just ask Alec Baldwin about the message he left for his daughter.

2) State your name at the beginning of the message. Don't just assume everyone has Caller ID and leave the "Hi, it's me" message and then hang up. It can be tricky knowing who to call back if your wife and mother-in-law sound exactly the same.

3) If you happen to be leaving a message for a woman you've just met at a bar, don't leave mulitple messages. Don't be like this guy in the movie Swingers:

3:25 PM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink

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