Voicemail

What to say in a business voicemail greeting (12 scripts)

Reviewed by Sujan ThapaliyaLast updated August 31, 2026

The short answer

A business voicemail greeting needs four things: who the caller reached, that the message was received, when someone will call back, and one route for anything urgent. Twelve to fifteen seconds is enough to say all four. Anything longer is answered by hanging up rather than by leaving a message.

The greeting is the only recording most callers ever hear, played at the worst moment: after they have failed to reach a person. Its one job is to make leaving a message feel worth the thirty seconds. Most fail by running long, or by never answering the thing the caller is waiting on — whether anybody calls back.

What should a business voicemail greeting say?

Four things, and they are the same four whether the line is a main number, a support queue or one salesperson's direct dial. The scripts further down are these four elements arranged for different situations.

The four elements. A greeting missing the third is the one callers complain about; a greeting missing the fourth is the one that gets three voicemails from the same person.
Element	What it does	Example wording
Who they reached	Confirms the number was right, which is the caller's first uncertainty.	You have reached Northgate Plumbing.
That the message lands	Tells them a person, not a machine, will see it.	Leave your name, number and what you need, and it comes straight to us.
When you will call back	Sets the expectation you are going to be judged against. Only promise what you keep.	We return calls the same working day.
One urgent route	Gives the caller who cannot wait somewhere to go, so they do not simply redial.	If it cannot wait, text this number and we will see it faster.

How long should a business voicemail greeting be?

Twelve to fifteen seconds. Ordinary speaking pace on a recorded greeting runs about 150 words a minute, so the budget is roughly 30 to 38 words — which is exactly enough for the four elements and nothing else. The table below gives the twelve scripts with their word counts and the time each takes at that pace, so you can see what an added sentence actually costs the caller.

Word counts are of the script as written; spoken time is the count at 150 words per minute, the pace of an unhurried recorded greeting. Read yours aloud with a timer before you keep it.
Script	Use it for	Words	Spoken time
1. Main line, standard	The default company number	34	14s
2. Main line, small team	Under ten people, no reception	31	12s
3. After hours	Outside opening hours	36	14s
4. Weekend	Saturday and Sunday overflow	29	12s
5. Public holiday	A single named closure day	33	13s
6. Out of office, dated	One person away, return date known	35	14s
7. Out of office, open-ended	Away, return date not known	32	13s
8. Direct dial, in role	A named person's own line	28	11s
9. Sales rep, field-based	Someone driving most of the day	33	13s
10. Support queue overflow	All agents busy, callers waiting	37	15s
11. Number changed	A line being retired	30	12s
12. Bilingual opener	A market with two working languages	38	15s

The twelve scripts

Read these straight into the recorder and change the names. Square brackets mark the words that must change; everything outside them is there for a reason.

1. Main line, standard

You have reached [company]. Nobody is free to take your call right now, so leave your name, your number and what you need. We return calls the same working day. If it cannot wait, [alternative route].

2. Main line, small team

Hello, this is [company]. There are [number] of us and we are all on other calls. Leave a message with your number and one of us will call you back today.

3. After hours

You have reached [company], outside our opening hours. We are open [days] from [time] to [time]. Leave your name and number and you are first in the queue when we open. For anything urgent, [alternative route].

4. Weekend

You have reached [company]. We are closed for the weekend and back on Monday morning. Leave a message and we will call you back then — messages left now are answered before the phone opens.

5. Public holiday

You have reached [company]. We are closed for [holiday] and open again on [date]. Leave your name and number and we will call you back that morning. This greeting is replaced when we reopen.

6. Out of office, dated

This is [name] at [company]. I am away until [date] and not picking up messages while I am out. For anything that cannot wait until then, call [colleague] on [number]. Otherwise leave a message and I will call you back after [date].

7. Out of office, open-ended

This is [name] at [company]. I am away from the phone for the next while and checking messages once a day. Leave your name and number. If it is time-critical, [colleague] on [number] can help you today.

8. Direct dial, in role

This is [name], [role] at [company]. Leave your name, your number and what it is about, and I will call you back today or tomorrow morning.

9. Sales rep, field-based

This is [name] at [company]. I am with customers most of the day, so the fastest way to reach me is a message with your number and a time that suits you. I return calls between [time] and [time].

10. Support queue overflow

You have reached [company] support. Every agent is with a customer. Leave your name, your number and your [account or order number] and we will call you back in order — usually within [timeframe]. You keep your place in the queue.

11. Number changed

You have reached an old number for [company]. Our number is now [new number]. Save it, and call us there. Messages left here are still read, but a call to the new number is answered faster.

12. Bilingual opener

You have reached [company]. Leave your name and number and we will call you back today. [Same sentence in the second language.] For [language] service, say so in your message and the right person will call.

How do I record a greeting so it actually plays?

The recording is the easy half. What goes wrong is where it is stored and what sits in front of it — a greeting recorded into a handset disappears with the handset, and a forwarding rule in front of the mailbox means callers never hear it at all.

1
Write it down and time it
Read the script aloud against a timer. If it runs past 15 seconds, cut the sentence that is not one of the four elements — it is almost always the opening hours.
2
Record it in the platform, not the handset
Record through your phone platform or upload a file, as when you set voicemail up on a VoIP line — a greeting held in a desk phone's local menu is lost at the next re-provision. One take, quiet room, slightly slower than conversation, and stop talking before you stop recording: clipped final words are the commonest defect.
3
Set the ring time in front of it
Eighteen to twenty-five seconds, four to six rings. Shorter cuts off callers who are deciding; longer loses the ones who conclude nobody is there.
4
Call the number from outside and listen
From another phone, not from the mailbox menu. You are checking the greeting, the ring time, and that no forwarding rule is sending callers to the mailbox before the phone is tried.
5
Diary the ones with a date in them
Holiday and out-of-office greetings state a return date, which makes them wrong the moment it passes. Put the swap-back in the calendar when you record it, not afterwards.

What must a voicemail you leave for someone else include?

Your own greeting is not regulated. The message you leave on somebody else's mailbox as part of a sales campaign is. Under the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, a prerecorded telemarketing message has to identify the seller and give a telephone number the recipient can call to be put on your do-not-call list, and the TCPA governs the consent behind the call in the first place. Both apply to a voicemail drop exactly as they apply to a live call.

The greeting is not where compliance lives

No wording in your own mailbox greeting creates consent to call anybody, and none of it satisfies the identification rules for the messages you leave. Those obligations attach to the outbound call — see the TCPA and the Telemarketing Sales Rule cited below.

Keep the sales voicemail you leave and the greeting on your own line stylistically apart, too: a prospect who hears one synthetic voice in both concludes, correctly, that nobody is there. Writing the message you leave is a separate problem, covered in cold calling scripts.

When the greeting is no longer the right tool

A greeting is one recording played to everyone who does not get through. Once the right answer depends on who is calling, when, or what they need, you are encoding a routing decision in prose the caller cannot act on — the point to move it into an auto attendant, where 'press 2 for deliveries' is a route and after-hours is a schedule rather than a greeting somebody must remember to change. Two smaller signals say the same: the same message left twice because the caller was unsure it recorded, and a message-waiting indicator nobody watches because the messages are read as email.

Frequently asked questions

What should a professional voicemail greeting say?

Who the caller reached, that the message was received, when someone will call back, and one alternative for anything urgent. In that order. Everything else — opening hours, the address, a list of departments — belongs in an auto attendant the caller can act on, not in a recording they have to sit through before the beep.

How long should a business voicemail greeting be?

Twelve to fifteen seconds, which is 30 to 38 words at normal speaking pace. The four required elements fit comfortably in that. Past about 20 seconds the hang-up rate climbs, because a caller who already decided to leave a message is now waiting to be allowed to.

How do I hear my own voicemail greeting?

Call your own number from a different phone and let it ring through, rather than dialling into the mailbox. The mailbox menu plays the greeting back from storage; a call from outside plays what your callers actually get, including the ring time before it answers and any forwarding rule sitting in front of it.

Should the greeting promise a callback time?

Only one you will keep. A greeting that says 'within one business day' and is answered in three has told every caller something checkable and untrue. If the honest answer is variable, say what you will do instead of when: that messages are checked each morning, or that the email route is faster.

Can I use a text-to-speech voice instead of recording one?

For a main line, yes — synthetic voices are now indistinguishable enough that callers do not comment, and a generated greeting is easier to keep current. For a named person's direct line, record it yourself. The mismatch between a human name and a synthetic voice is the one case where callers notice and read it as nobody being there.

Sources

Telemarketing Sales Rule — Federal Trade CommissionDo-not-call obligations, abandonment-rate limits for predictive dialing, and required call disclosures.
47 U.S.C. § 227 — Restrictions on the use of telephone equipment — Cornell Legal Information InstituteThe Telephone Consumer Protection Act itself — the consent requirements, calling-hours limits, and private right of action.
47 CFR Part 64 — Miscellaneous Rules Relating to Common Carriers — Electronic Code of Federal RegulationsThe operative federal rules on caller ID transmission, call authentication, and robocall mitigation.

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