Thanks to everyone who wrote in with anecdotes, tips, and tricks relevant to
the fine art of voice mail message-leaving. Here are several I think you’ll
find helpful; I did.

• From an unidentified wise - and wisely terse - reader: “My favorite
  [greeting message] is the one I reach frequently, ‘Hi. You know the drill.
  Thanks.’”
• Wes M. writes: “In our system you can press 0 (zero) to be transferred to
  a ‘live person.’ A lot of people don’t realize this is possible in most
  systems. We instructed our staff to mention this in their greetings, but not
  all do. I’ve seen the # used to drop directly to the message.” No doubt about
  it, 0 is a fairly ubiquitous key on corporate systems, but I would guess you
  only get to a live person 50% of the time, that’s been my experience.
• Long-time subscriber Michael G. offers these excellent suggestions: “I
  agree. One more item though. This works both ways. When leaving a message,
  leave a short one. ‘Hi, this is Blah Blah. Gimme a call. My # is
  xxx.xxx.xxxx.’ Don’t go into a Russian novel length message. You’ll just have
  to repeat everything when you all connect anyway. And, for heaven’s sake,
  LEAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER. Don’t assume people have it memorized - don’t make
  them go look it up. I enjoy TNPC, it’s a great newsletter. Thanks a lot.”
• A tip from Bob N. when you get a PBX on the other end: “I have found that
  a good portion of PBX systems will respond to pressing the ‘1′ key to skip the
  rest of the intro and go right to leaving the message.”
• Tyrell is putting # and * right to work: “You’ve likely just saved me
  hours a week on the phone… My work involves contacting Building Operators,
  Police, Fire, Nurses, etc. on a regular bases. I am very well aware of the
  time involved (wasted) waiting for the ‘message’ to finish before I can
  continue with the reason I called. I’ll be trying this, either ‘#’ or ‘*,’ the
  very next call I make at work. Based on the length of some machine messages I
  have to sit through I figure that I’ll be well ahead even if I have to redial
  some of the number. As I have a (somewhat) finite list of people I deal with,
  over a month or two I’ll compile a list and place it by the phones. Excellent
  info… thanks.”
• Charlene S. reports: “The only thing I hate worse [than a lengthy
  monologue] is hearing a message start with, ‘Please listen to all options
  before making your selection’ because that usually is followed by, ‘You now
  have 18 options.’ Personally, as soon as I hear something like that, I hit
  zero.”

(c) 2004 Lee Hudspeth

[via TNPCnewsletter.com]