I know a lot of wonderful, cheerful people whose voicemail greetings sound like the recordings of a badly depressed person. “Hi,” a slow, lifeless voice goes, “you’ve reached the voicemail of… [whoever].” Pause. “Please leave a message after the tone”.
Meanwhile I’m wondering if I should call a suicide hotline and stage an intervention.
So this monday tip is simple: Make yourself a cheerful voicemail greeting. One where you sound happy and upbeat. One that will make whoever hears it a little happier at work.
A cheerful voicemail greeting will not only cheer people up, it will also improve the quality of the voicemail messages you receive – if the last thing people hear before they leave you a message is a happy voice, they will tend to be more positive themselves. And of course, when people start calling each other and hearing cheerful voices everyone will become a little happier at work.
This tip also applies to those “Out of office” email messages. Sure you can simply write “I’m out of the office and will be back on xx/xx”, as most people do. But you could also do like the HR manager of one of Denmarks largest grocery chains. The last time I emailed him, I got this back:
I’m not in the office, and will be back on xx/xx. Why not contact one of my stellarly talented colleagues instead?
Stig
Chief of the HR tribe
This email delivers the necessary facts and it also says something positive about Stig who is indeed a happy guy and about Fakta where he works. Let’s bring some more fun into the workplace – and this is one easy place to start.
The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.
Good point….any suggestions for fun sounding voice mail greetings?
You don’t really need to say anything particularly clever or funny – just say what you’d normally say, but in a cheerful voice.
I end my greeting with “And have a really happy day!” but otherwise it’s just “You’ve reached the voicemail of blahblah, please leave a message blahblah”.
Brilliant simplicity, Alex. Vocal tone carries more weight than the words themselves (any Communications 101 student will tell you that). And if you can add fun into it as well… all the better! My life philosophy is that if I’m not having fun, I must not be doing it right (or maybe shouldn’t be doing it at all). Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks Timothy. I like your philosophy which is mirrored in The Lazy Way to Success by Fred Gratzon who argues that “If work feels like work, you’re not doing it right” :o) More here: https://positivesharing.com/2006/03/book-review-the-lazy-way/
Hello,
I read something a few years back about this, and now at the end of my very professional, upbeat voice mail greeting I say something along the lines of …
… and please remember to leave you name, phone #, and your favorite color.
I was surprised at the number of otherwise very businesslike people who would leave there favorite color and pretty much nothing else. It would almost always put a smile on my face, and when the person called back to leave the rest of the message, you could hear the smile in there voice.