Outgoing messages on your answering machine can be a tremendously valuable tool for communicating with a variety of people — vendors, prospective residents, current residents, central office employees, etc.   Here are a few tips and tricks to help make sure your outgoing message is effective.

• Make sure your outgoing greeting is clear and easy to understand.
  • Volume – Make sure your voice is loud enough for the recorder.
  • Speed – Speak slower than you might normally speak.
  • Review – Make sure to review the message after you’ve recorded it.
• Always remember that the office telephone is a business telephone line, and that the information provided should be restricted to professional, appropriate business information only.
  • Avoid things like ‘theme songs’, political statements or ‘the joke of the day’ when recording your outgoing message.
•  When recording a message, remember that though marketing can be aided with a great message, we also have a number of residents who contact the management office for a variety of reasons.
  • If your phone message mentions your blow-out free rent specials being offered from now until eternity, don’t be surprised when a current resident wants to know what they need to do to have their rent reduced by half!  It is always best to stay just a bit ‘general’ until the actual phone call with a prospective resident.
• Be sensitive about the length of the message.
  • Messages which extend for more than 15 to 30 seconds can lose their effectiveness as callers will grow impatient.
• Always record your outgoing message in a cheerful, upbeat tone.
  • We all have difficult days. If your message was recorded on one of those days, now is a great opportunity to re-record your message in an upbeat voice.

Cambridge endorses the use of pagers for after hours MANAGEMENT and MAINTENANCE emergencies.  For this reason, it is MANDATORY that pager numbers be provided on your outgoing phone recorder message.    And, because resident service is a critical element to the successful management of a property, we strongly consider those of you who have only moderate marketing needs to consider offering the pager numbers prior to offering information regarding vacant apartments available.

A couple sample messages are noted below.

• “You have reached the Happy Valley Apartments!  If you are a current resident and you are experiencing a life threating emergency please hang up and dial 911.  For other after hours maintenance emergencies please page our 24 hour response number at 800-555-1234.  For after hours management emergencies please page 800-555-7755.  If you are calling to learn more about our wonderful one and two bedroom apartment homes, please leave us your name and telephone number so we can call you back promptly!  Our office is open weekdays from 9am until 6pm and on weekends from 11am until 5pm.  We look forward to speaking with you and thank you again for calling Happy Valley Apartments!”

 

• “Thank you for calling the Happy Valley Apartments!  If you are a current resident and you are experiencing a life threating emergency please hang up and dial 911.  If you are experiencing a maintenance emergency, please page us at 212-555-1212.  For afterhours management, you can page us at 212-555-9999.   For information regarding our beautiful two and three bedroom apartments, leave your name and telephone number after the tone.  We will return your call during our regular business hours which are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.   Thank you again for calling!”