How to Leverage Live Voicemail to Increase Answer Rates

Summary:

• Live Voicemail is a newer feature on iPhones running iOS 17 or later. It allows users to see transcribed messages in real time.
• Live Voicemail can make it easier for prospects to screen calls—but it also offers a unique chance for sales reps to engage prospects by explaining who they are and why they are calling.
• Sales reps should use power dialers to manage calls effectively and leave personalized, compelling voicemails that motivate prospects to engage. This includes using the prospect's name, mentioning the time, and referring to previous interactions or known pain points.
• Creating detailed, individualized messages rather than generic ones can significantly increase the chances of engagement. Integrating CRM tools with dialing software can help maintain detailed prospect records for better personalization.

Live Voicemail isn’t an obstacle—it’s an asset if you use it right

Live Voicemail is one of the most transformative technologies to affect phone calls in the last 20-30 years. Whether you’re an individual dialer, a business owner, or someone who manages a team of dialers, this feature included on all iPhones running iOS 17 or later seriously changes the way people pick up your calls—or don’t.

But Live Voicemail doesn’t have to be a risk—it’s actually an opportunity if you know how to work with it. Below, we show you how to leverage this technology to have more meaningful conversations with your customers and outbound sales prospects.

What is Live Voicemail?

Think back to the early days of answering machines in the 1990s—the tape would play, and then the person who called would start talking. The recipient could listen in as the message was being recorded, and pick up the phone if they wanted to answer. This was called call screening.

Live Voicemail is essentially Apple’s version of call screening for iPhone users. The difference is that it’s on the iPhone instead of a clunky old recording device, and that it transcribes the message into text in real time so that you can read it at your own pace instead of having to listen.

How Live Voicemail is changing the game for phone sales

Next to a face-to-face conversation, the phone is still the best way to communicate with prospects. But it’s also one form of communication (along with email) that’s under attack if you work in outbound sales.

There are already plenty of other technologies out there designed to stop your calls from going through. Carriers apply spam labels. Apps automatically terminate certain calls or pass them through to voicemail before prospects even have a chance to answer. Even device manufacturers have gotten into the game, with Apple allowing users to block calls from unknown numbers directly in their device settings.

But Live Voicemail is a game changer for one reason: it not only tells the prospect who is calling; it also tells them why.

That means your voicemail strategy now needs to answer the question of why a prospect should pick up and engage with your call. If you aren’t leaving voicemails that give them a reason to do that, you’re missing out on an opportunity to increase your answer rates.

Learn More: What are Answer Rates on Sales Calls & Why Do They Matter?

Building a voicemail strategy in the era of Live Voicemail

Having said all that, here are some considerations for building an effective voicemail strategy in the context of this new technology:

Use a power dialer

The kind of dialing technology you use matters when your prospects have Live Voicemail. For example, using a power dialer like PhoneBurner means you’re going to be live when your call goes through—whether it gets answered right away or passed through to voicemail.

That gives you a few seconds to convince the prospect to pick up in an authentic way. If they don’t, you can just finish the message and move on to your next call.

Not so for auto or parallel dialers, which don’t involve a live agent until after a call is answered live. Where does that leave you with respect to live voicemail?

To turn live voicemail into love conversations, use a single line power dialer. It’s more personal, more effective, and your call-to-connect rates can be vastly superior.

Try a more personal touch

Some reps might be concerned that Live Voicemail will force them to leave detailed, personalized messages on every single call. But while this certainly takes more time than voicemail drops, it’s also potentially much more effective.

This is particularly relevant when you’re calling high value leads. A few seconds of thoughtful messaging is well worth the increase in conversations.

If you have a very compelling, relevant voicemail message that’s being transcribed in front of the consumer, there’s a much greater chance it will motivate them to interact with you. The more thought and effort you put into personalizing your communication, the more often you’ll reach people. You might dial fewer numbers overall, but your answer rates will probably be much higher.

Be detail-oriented

When you’re leaving a message for a prospect with Live Voicemail, there are a few easy ways to make it feel familiar and relevant enough that they’ll pick up and talk with you. Here are a few hacks to try:

• Call them by name—do this a couple of times so they know the message is specifically for them and not a generic audience.
• Mention the time you’re calling. This tells the prospect that the message is unique and not part of a drop.
• Bring up the information you’ve learned about them from previous calls or other interactions—pain points related to what you’re selling are a great place to start, but you might also ask them a question about a recent life event and pause for a second or two to see if they’ll answer. This can encourage them to pick up your call when they might otherwise ignore it, and it’s particularly useful if you already have some kind of relationship with the prospect.

You’ll have the most success with this part of your voicemail strategy if you use a CRM that integrates with your dialing software so you can keep track of prospect details. Learn more about PhoneBurner’s 200+ integrations here.

Look for other time-saving opportunities

Since you and your team will need to spend more time leaving personalized voicemail messages, it’s going to be vital to save time elsewhere in your outreach process. That’s why using a power dialer is often better than relying on your built-in click-to-call dialer.

There’s often a lot of time in between phone calls that gets used up on tedious tasks—like looking up records, filing notes away, recording different dispositions based on how and if the call was answered, etc.

If we’re entering an era where reps need to spend more time talking to (and ideally with) prospects, then it’s critical to save time on these other activities. Most click-to-call setups require a little more work on behalf of the user—and over time, it piles up.

By replacing manual tasks with automations between calls, power dialers can put you in a much better position to be productive and achieve your goals on calls.

Live Voicemail isn’t going away—so your team needs to adapt

If you’re an iPhone user, one of the best things you can do right now is experience Live Voicemail for yourself, so you understand the experience as a dialer. And if you can’t, you should ask someone on your team who can.

With Apple’s massive market share a stunning percentage of your calls are likely to result in the live voicemail experience.

You’ll also want to carefully review your voicemail script and make sure it doesn’t read as spam. Not only will people decline to pick up your calls—but they can also block your calls more easily, which means you’ll never be able to reach them from your number again.

Finally, remember that Live Voicemail also gives call recipients a lot of potential ammunition to report your calls (and numbers) if they think your calls are a nuisance. That can not only lead to being blocked more often; it can also create potential regulatory problems.

All of which is to say, generic voicemail messages won’t cut it anymore. In fact, there’s a real chance they’ll actually hold your team back.

Instead, make sure you’re paying as much attention as possible to what your voicemails say, how they read, and how your reps are delivering them. And consider using a power dialer like PhoneBurner to save valuable time so that you can put more energy into actually reaching and talking to your leads.

Not a PhoneBurner user yet? Start a free trial here.