The challenge: the disconnect between caller and recorded message
In our voice direction work, we often see companies with excellent accessibility, yet their voicemail remains an afterthought. Take a regional service company in Flanders, for example. Their employees always spoke to customers kindly in the office. Outside office hours, however, callers heard a hastily recorded message from a random employee.
The message was recorded in a rush on a smartphone. The sound quality was hollow. The information was jumbled. Callers rarely left a message and often looked elsewhere. They had good intentions. But they lacked the calm and clarity needed when a customer couldn't speak to anyone directly.
Our approach: cut, pause, and get the tone right
Fixing that phone contact starts with a skill nobody notices when it's done well. We focused on three key areas when we revised the phone message: cutting unnecessary information, controlling the speech pace, and ensuring technical audio quality for phone lines.
A good phone message works like good room acoustics. When the sound is right, you don't notice it. But if it echoes or sounds harsh, everyone notices immediately. They want to get away as fast as they can.
For this specific case, we chose a warm, approachable style. An experienced voice actor, like our Flemish voice Patrick, naturally brings a familiar, calm tone. His years of radio experience immediately invite callers to listen.