I just moved from Sprint to T-Mobile (more on that later). One thing I always liked about sprint voicemail, since my immediate family all uses sprint, is that it has the option to skip the greeting by pressing 1.
It always kind of annoyed me when leaving a voicemail for Amanda that I couldn’t skip her gretting. Thanks to this post, which I should have looked up before, I now know that I can press # to skip the greeting. I added a note at the end of my new voicemail greeting so that people who regularly call me will figure it out. Sprint adds this information to the end of your greeting automatically.
Why don’t you leave the skip note at the BEGINNING of your greeting instead of at the end?
Madr, I had considered that, but my thought was that I wanted people who hadn’t called me before/much to hear the greeting first.
This mimics the Sprint system, which automatically tells you after the message what the other options are.
If that’s what you want and what you think your callers (new and old) want, that’s fine then.
I personally don’t like having to listen to people’s greetings. I find “Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of xyz” or “I’m not here at the moment” pretty pointless. I already know who I’m calling and I already know you’re not there if I reach your voicemail. An argument could be made about “what if the caller dialed the wrong number, how would he know it?” Well, if the caller dialed the wrong number, that’s his problem. I expect basic intelligence from my callers. (I sound so bitchy. he he. Comes from getting wrong numbers every so often and getting the annoying “Is xyx there?” question. I prefer people asking “This is abc, may I speak with xyz?”)
My voicemail greeting is just “Press # to skip the rest of the voicemail greeting. Leave your message after the beep.” The second sentence is for the benefit of people who have never (unlikely but still possible) heard a voicemail beep.
Madr,
You have a valid point. Honestly this is post is rather old, and I don’t even know what my voicemail greeting is anymore. I should probably check on it and update it. I might implement your suggestion if I do.
Thanks!
Don’t mind me. I just came across your site because I was looking for a way to skip the automated instructions that my mobile phone service providers insert between my personal greeting and the beep. It appears it can’t be taken out so I’ve taken people’s suggestions (like yours) to just tell callers how to skip everything.