We all have competitors, and we definitely differentiate our services by offering more expertise or experience.  However, in today’s hurried world, response is also important, sometimes critical.  How are you handling your cell phone voicemail?  Sometimes, just the nature or tone of your message can cause a hangup with no message, or they will call a competitor as well to see who will respond first.

Or, there is the current customer or client who you definitely want to keep, so you want them to feel special when they call and are possibly mildly frustrated that they got your voicemail.  What that message says, and how it says it, can make the difference.

Well, there’s a FREE (at least currently) solution out there that allows you to do some amazing customization of your cell voicemail greetings.  It’s YouMail.com, and I love it.  For those very special clients, you can create custom messages that play based on caller ID and their phone number.  So, when your big client calls, you can call her by name, with a special message like “Mary, you know how important your business is to me, so my not answering is obviously because I’m stuck in a stalled elevator with no cell signal.  Please leave me a message, and when I get out of this thing, you’ll be the first call I make.” Amusing yes, but also very personal, indicating Mary’s value as a person and a client.

I know, now you’re wondering how you’ll get the time to create special messages for hundreds of contacts.  You don’t need to.   If their name shows in their caller ID, the YouMail system sees it, and an option allows it to say something like this for a call from Jonathan Smith:  “Jonathan, Jim can’t take your call right now, but please leave a message, and he’ll call you back shortly.”  This is automatic if you elect the option globally, so you don’t have to set it up for each contact.
[important]You probably already want to check YouMail out, but I can give you some insight into how I use it in the Premium Content below the Related Articles…[/important]

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There are several ways in which YouMail can help you in dealing with clients or customers during real estate or other important time-sensitive transactions:

• It only takes a few moments to call in to create a special and different message for one particular person.  You can even do it from the menu items available when you receive a message from them.  Example:  Mary Martin calls to leave you a message that she’s concerned that she hasn’t heard anything about her transaction in a few days.  You tell YouMail that you want to change her greeting, as you won’t be able to talk to her the rest of the day.  If she calls back, she can hear a special greeting that you record telling her the current situation and her transaction status, and asking her to bear with you until you can call her in the morning.
• You’re about to go into an important meeting, and normally wouldn’t want to be disturbed and turning off your cell phone.  However, you have one special situation, and if you get a call from a certain person, you’ll want to break out of the meeting to handle it.  Just leave a special greeting for that person keyed to their caller ID.  Tell them that you’re in a meeting with cell phone off, but their call is important, so call xxx-xxxx and tell the receptionist to interrupt the meeting.  Talk about impressing a client!

Here’s a video.