Voicemail greeting generator: free business greetings in seconds

This free voicemail greeting generator writes a business voicemail greeting for you in a few seconds: pick your type of business, the situation and when you will call back, and copy the result. Each greeting runs about 20 to 30 seconds when read aloud and comes with a short and a friendly version, so you can record the one that sounds like you.

Free voicemail greeting generator

Fill in your details and the greeting updates as you type. It runs entirely in your browser from templates we wrote and tested for each kind of business, so nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere. The word count and time estimate assume a normal speaking pace of about 150 words a minute.

Want a longer list to choose from? The voicemail greeting scripts post has 12 ready-made scripts for brokerages, listing signs, leasing offices and maintenance lines. For vacations and holiday closures, the out of office voicemail examples add a backup contact and an emergency line.

What makes a good business voicemail greeting

A caller who reaches voicemail has already been let down a little. The greeting has a few seconds to reassure them they dialed the right place and tell them exactly what to do next. Three things decide whether it works: length, the order of the information, and tone.

Length: 20 to 30 seconds

That is about 50 to 75 words. Some voicemail systems will not take more: Verizon's voicemail quick start guide gives you 30 seconds to record your greeting. A shorter greeting is fine on a line where callers already know you, like a personal cell. On a main business line, the extra seconds go to the callback promise and the one detail you need from the caller.

Order: who, why, what to leave, when, and another way

1. Who they reached. The business name first, and your name on a personal line.
2. Why nobody answered. One short reason: with a client, closed for the day, on another call.
3. What to leave. Name and number, plus the single detail that saves you a second call, such as the property address or the unit number.
4. When you will call back. A real window you can keep, like "the same business day", not "as soon as possible".
5. Another way to get help. A website, a text option or an emergency number, if you have one.

The generator follows this order. If you write your own greeting, keep the business name in the first sentence and the callback promise near the end, where callers remember it.

Tone: plain and warm

Write the way you talk on a good day. Skip lines like "your call is important to us"; callers have heard them too often to believe them. Use contractions ("we'll", not "we will") so the recording does not sound read. And only promise a callback time you will actually hit, because the caller holds you to it.

How to record your greeting so it sounds right

• Find a quiet room. Turn off fans, close the door, and stay away from hard, echoing walls. A closet full of clothes works surprisingly well.
• Hold the phone the way you would on a call. A few inches from your mouth, not on speaker. Speaker mode picks up the room.
• Read from the screen, slowly. Most people rush. Aim for a pace that feels slightly too slow while you are recording.
• Smile on the first line. It changes how your voice sounds, and the caller hears it.
• Say numbers and web addresses twice as clearly. Pause before and after them.
• Call yourself from another phone. Listen once all the way through. If anything sounds off, record it again.
• Set a reminder to update it. Hours, holidays and return dates change; an outdated greeting is worse than a plain one.

The steps for iPhone, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Google Voice are in the greeting scripts post, under how to record your greeting.

Business voicemail greeting examples by situation

Here is what the generator produces for four common situations, so you can see how the pieces fit before you make your own. Swap in your details or run them through the tool above.

A clinic greeting should also tell callers with a medical emergency to hang up and call 911. Add that line first if it applies to you.

When a voicemail greeting is not enough

A good greeting helps the callers who stay on the line. The problem is how many do not.

The first two numbers come from CallRail's survey of 1,000 US consumers. Put together, they mean most callers who reach your greeting never leave a message, and many of them dial the next business on their list. The third is why calling back is only half a fix: in Pew Research Center's survey, 67 percent of adults said they generally do not answer unknown numbers and check any voicemail later. So your callback often lands in their voicemail, and the game of phone tag starts.

For a real estate office or a property manager, the caller who hangs up might be a buyer asking about a listing, an owner looking for a new manager, or a resident with a leak. The greeting cannot help any of them if they never hear the end of it. The guide on how to stop missing business calls covers the steps that sit in front of voicemail.

Have every call answered instead

Keep the greeting as a backup, and put an answer in front of it. callflo.ai is an AI receptionist that picks up every call, 24/7, in your business name, and it can take many calls at once, so nobody reaches voicemail because the line was busy.

• It learns your business from your website. Setup takes about 5 minutes, and you can call it to hear it before you forward your line.
• It finishes the call. It books appointments on your calendar, takes payments through Stripe with the card entered on the keypad, and transfers calls by rules you set.
• You see every call. It texts the caller after the call, and you get a summary and a transcript.
• You keep your number. Forward it after hours, when nobody picks up, or all the time.

Starter is $39 a month on annual billing ($49 month to month) with 120 minutes included, and extra minutes are $0.98. There is no setup fee and no contract. Plans are on the pricing page, and the agents page and property managers page show it on each kind of line.

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