The other day I rang a popular cartoonist. He was the subject of an interview and we were trying to get hold of him. His home phone just had one of those generic Telstra announcements and was continually engaged. Grrr. The time had been arranged with his publicist and it was live radio. Anyway eventually I got his mobile phone and rang it. His voicemail was simply:

Leave a message *beeep*

Not too chatty then. This did not auger well for a lively interview.

But this post is not about his interview but his answering machine message, because of course then I went on leave and had to change all my answering machine messages.

What is the perfect answering machine message?

I think there are a couple of guidelines to follow:

1. It can’t be too long. People get frustrated having to listen to a long message and might be paying International rates.
2. It can’t be too short. It needs to convey enough information so that the caller knows they have reached the right number, have registered that they have got an answering machine, and gives them an indication of when their message might be returned. ie: I’m not at my phone until xx date.

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3. If a business phone, you can’t leave a funny message.
4. You must speak clearly.

These guidelines raise more questions:

What information should you have on your message? (mobiles? email addresses?)

At the moment mine says:

Hi you’ve rung Cellobella from xxx, I’m on holidays until xxx. Any enquiries should go to xxx on xxxx xxxx. Cheers!

Should you allow your kids to do the home machine message? (Personally I’m not too keen on this)

And then of course what is the etiquette of returning phone calls?

I’m rubbish at it myself. I hate checking the machine – especially at work. I force myself to do it every day. Which is odd because I am very good at replying to emails quickly and efficiently.

I’ve solved the problem at home through accident. Our answering machine is stuffed. Oh it answers the call alright but we can’t hear your messages.

So here’s what you’ll hear if you ring the SultanaHouse:

Thanks for calling [xxxxxxxx]. If you need to get hold of us please ring our mobiles. Do not leave a message we won’t be able to hear it. The answering machine doesn’t work. Isn’t that useful. Have a good day. Bye

It occurs to me that this isn’t ideal. You waste your call. We don’t get the message. I think we’d be better off with no answering machine at all.

What does your answering machine say?