Top 5 Voicemail Drop Best Practices

March 7, 2022

If you’re ready to study voicemail drop best practices, you’re probably awakening to the realities of traditional outbound sales strategies. Once upon a time, all you needed was a phone with service, a call list, and someone willing to make the calls. You could reach everyone on the list if you were patient and your caller was dedicated.

What most weren’t aware of in those days was the cost of a sales call. It varies by industry and business but has been estimated as high as $250. How did you boost productivity in those days? You motivated your caller to work harder or hired more call handlers. Maybe you had your callers read scripts when leaving voicemails, saving a few seconds here and there by eliminating ramble.

Today, it’s much easier to boost productivity by eliminating manual voicemails entirely. You do that by automating the voicemail drop.

Voicemail Drop Best Practices: What Are Voicemail Drops?

Voicemail drops allow you to leave one carefully recorded message in multiple voicemail inboxes in a small amount of time. You automate select parts of the outbound marketing process to reduce call times and increase productivity.

Here is a quick overview of the process:

Record your message. You can start over as many times as needed to get the words, tone, and speed just right. If you don’t want to use your own voice, consider using voice-to-text.
Generate your call list. You can use an existing list, subcategories of a larger list, or manually enter phone numbers.
Make your phone calls, allowing the system to drop in your pre-recorded voicemail when calls go to voicemail. If you choose to schedule voicemail drops, you can select a day and time for the system to distribute the message on your behalf.

How Effective are Voicemail Drops?

Research has estimated that 80% of sales calls go to voicemail. Each call representative can easily spend 20 hours or more leaving voicemail messages every month. When you cut out that time by automating voicemail drops, you create a more efficient system that allows you to reach more people in less time.

Dropped voicemail messages are often more effective than messages left manually for the following additional reasons:

You pre-record the message. That ensures consistency between calls and ensures clarity.
The right voicemail drop system will ensure your message starts immediately after the beep and is never cut off at the end.
You can do A/B split testing with pre-recorded messages. That allows you to improve effectiveness with time.

Factors That Increase Voicemail Drop Effectiveness

Copper/PRI Lines – VoIP voice broadcasting systems are marketed heavily today, but they’re often flagged as spam and are lower in quality than copper PRI lines. Ensure your broadcasting system only uses copper lines to ensure the highest quality messaging.
Completion – The best services utilize advanced technology to ensure every voicemail starts immediately after the beep and isn’t cut off at the end.
Concise – You don’t want to ramble in a voicemail because your recipient will delete the message. Get right to the point. Make sure every word serves a purpose, and the overall message is relevant.
Contact Lead – It’s best to state your return phone number at the beginning and end of the voicemail. If your recipient doesn’t catch it the first time, they won’t have to listen to the message again to get it. That may increase the chance of a callback.

Top Reasons to Use Voicemail Drop

Before we move on to five voicemail drop best practices, consider a quick list of the best reasons businesses and organizations use voicemail drop services:

Improves call efficiency for established outbound call operations
Maximizes results from the start for new outbound call operations
Reduces the need for live call agents
Quickly sends messages to internal teams
Distributes urgent messages to parents involved in a youth sport’s league
Delivers appointment reminders for patients or service-based businesses

In general, voicemail drop systems are helpful anytime you need to send messages to multiple people in as little time as possible. While medical offices and professional sales teams heavily use drops, there are many other applications.

5 Voicemail Drop Best Practices

It’s time to explore five voicemail drop best practices to help you create effective voicemail messages. The goal is to leave relevant messages that are likely to result in a desired response from your recipients.

1. Start With the Most Critical Information.

Top load every voicemail message you send. That means identifying the most important information and using it to open the message. If someone is going to delete your message halfway through, you want to make sure they at least heard the most important information. Hopefully, leading with value will keep many recipients on the line to the end.

In some cases, identifying who you are is the most crucial information. Sales prospects are more likely to delete cold messages from strangers than warm messages from familiar voices.

For example, let’s say you had a lengthy conversation with a potential client at a recent trade show. They left their phone number and were open to discussing your product in more depth at a later date. When you call them the next day, their voicemail picks up.

If you don’t identify yourself at the top of the message, they may not know who you are or why you’re calling. Perhaps they left their phone number with a couple of your competitors as well. Maybe they forgot all about your conversation in the scramble of a busy life. Identifying yourself ensures they recall the conversation. You become a familiar voice, instantly increasing the chance that they will return your call.

In other cases, your callback number is the most important piece of information. If the recipient is your employee, existing customer, or another person heavily invested in returning your call, you want to make it easy for them to get that information.

When neither of those situations apply, telling your recipient why you’re calling is often the most important information. For example, you may lead with an announcement that the recipient is the winner of your daily drawing. That exciting news tells the recipient why they don’t want to delete the message before responding.

2. Don’t Limit Yourself to One Pre-Recorded Voicemail Message.

When call agents leave messages in real-time, it’s often simpler to create one script that everyone follows. Multiple scripts would get confusing. But that’s just one more benefit of using voice drop software: you can easily create multiple pre-recorded voicemail messages for different situations.

Here are some examples of when this best practice might apply:

Split testing multiple messages to ensure you’re using the most effective version
Recording multiple messages in different tones to get it perfect
Allowing each call agent to record a message in their own voices
Recording a different message for subcategories of your call list
Varying your message, depending on the time of day delivered and other factors

The ability to record and store multiple voicemail messages allows you to target individual recipients with appropriate messages. If you use a service that allows you to fine-tune messages and store multiple options, this is one of the most impactful voicemail drop best practices to follow.

3. Keep Your Message Simple and Direct.

Voicemails don’t give you much room to beat around the bush. Many sales tips are floating around that instruct you to talk to people over the phone as you would in real life. While that relaxed, easy-going tone works in many cases, voicemail messages are far too brief for generic greetings and chit-chat.

After leaving the most critical information at the beginning of the message, you should simply tell your recipient what you want them to do next. Jump right into the reason you’re calling and what you’re hoping will happen next.

Here are some examples of simple and direct lines that may work for a voicemail message:

I have room in my schedule and look forward to booking your appointment.
Will 3 p.m. on Friday work for you? If so, call me back to confirm.
You can download the information instantly from the contact page on our website.
Please call back within two business days to claim your free extension.
Download our app or log into your account online to get your account back on track today.

These statements are all different, but they each give the recipient clear instructions on what to do next. If you leave the call to action out and simply state that you will call back or are sorry you missed them, they’re less likely to do anything after deleting your message.

4. Watch Your Tone.

The problem with leaving manual voicemail messages is that your current mood can easily interfere with the message. Live call agents are human, and it’s near impossible for humans to remove all emotion and personal problems from their voices while at work.

When you’re recording a message in advance, you have the advantage of repeating the process until the tone is just right. Different messages will require different tones. Here are some examples:

Stern, serious tones for debt collection calls
Bubbly, excited tones for sales notifications, rewards, and gifts
Friendly, compassionate tones for medical follow-ups

5. Use Thoughtful Timing to Increase Response.

You may think that the time of your call doesn’t matter much, especially if you’re sending voicemail drops. That’s an assumption that could leave you with unnecessarily low answer and response rates. Timing does matter, so start by thinking about the best times to reach members of your target market.

You don’t have information on the daily schedule for each person you call. What you do have is general knowledge about the people you’re trying to reach, at least in most cases. For example, if you’re trying to reach college students or working professionals, evening hours would likely work better than early mornings.

In general, research has shown that the best time for a sales call is in the middle of the week, around 4 or 5 p.m. Monday is traditionally the worst day for calls because most people are transitioning into their workweek from the weekend. The dreaded Mondays, right?

Set up a split test if you aren’t certain about the best time to reach people on your call list. Leave messages at different times and compare the answer and response rates. Once you collect adequate data, you can plan your call or voicemail drop times accordingly.

Your Voicemail Drop Best Practices in Action

If you read to this point, you understand what voicemail drops are and how they’re best applied to your business or organization. You’re also armed with some great tips for recording effective messages that maximize results.

Are you ready to sign up for voicemail drop services from a trustworthy brand known for consistently high quality? If so, visit our website to sign up for VoiceShot today. We offer comprehensive voice broadcasting services using the latest technology and reliable software.