If you’ve been making sales and support calls for any reasonable amount of time, you have a lot of experience dealing with voicemails. Depending on your list, voicemail could be the call outcome 80% of the time, or more.
Until iOS 17, interacting with voicemail was relatively simple:
Easy.
The new “Live Voicemail” experience introduces more scenarios to consider.
The good news? Voicemail used to be the “end of the line.” Now, voicemail can become a second opportunity to earn a live conversation.
If you’re using a 1-to-1 outreach platform like PhoneBurner, you have everything you need to navigate traditional and Live Voicemail experiences for optimal contact engagement.
That’s because you’ll be live on the line when Live Voicemail is reached, and you’ll have all of your contact notes and call history ready to leave the most personalized message possible.
In this guide, we’ll lay out common scenarios you and your team will encounter, so you know how to approach call campaigns with confidence.
Here we go.
At the risk of repeating ourselves, the reason Live Voicemail is such a big deal is that it empowers contacts to screen calls and then choose to talk to you based on your custom message.
With Apple’s ~57% US smartphone market share, and Live Voicemail becoming the default option when iOS 17 is released, you can expect to encounter Live Voicemail with some frequency.
However, because Live Voicemail only applies on some phones, and depends on multiple factors (more on this later) it's important to consider whether you are in a live voicemail experience, or not.
Here’s what to look for, and how to prepare.
Initially, iOS 17 devices prompted callers with the message, “Please state the reason for your call. The person you are calling may pick up.” This gave a clear indication that you reached Live Voicemail.
However, recent updates have removed this and simply adopt the iPhone users default recording.
In other words, you're unlikely to know with confidence that you've reached live voicemail.
That said, considering Apple's ~57% US smartphone market share, you can expect that a lot of your voicemails will be screened using Live Voicemail and have potential to turn into live conversations.
Resource: Live Voicemail scripts and best practices
Calls to landlines will not have a Live Voicemail experience.
Odds are, calls to Android devices won’t either (at least not yet).
Apple customers have the ability to customize their message, and older phones won’t have Live Voicemail at all.
The bottom line is that many of your calls won’t go to Live Voicemail, and sometimes, you just won’t know.
In these instances, the decision to leave a custom voicemail vs. a pre-recorded voicemail vs. none at all is entirely up to you.
Consider factors such as the value of the lead, your relationship with the contact, the pipeline stage, number of call attempts, importance of message personalization, and other factors.
Whenever the value of a live conversation justifies the time invested to leave a custom voicemail, you should.
Keep in mind that when using PhoneBurner, as soon as you click a disposition button to leave a pre-recorded voicemail, you’re immediately moved to the next contact – so the opportunity for a live conversation will be gone.
Americans spend an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes each day on their mobile devices, compared to 2 hours and 54 minutes in 2022 Source Reviews.org (2023). Phone activity is not only significant, it’s growing rapidly. Plus, activity is actually higher during the week, than on weekends.
An active phone will show a notification of the incoming call. When the contact taps the notification it expands to the full Live Voicemail experience.
If the contact’s phone is locked, they’ll be notified of your incoming call. If/when you begin to leave a message, it will indicate this on the screen along with the instructions “Tap to View” and an accept button. Clicking “Tap to View” will display the live voicemail transcription, again with an option to accept your call.
If the phone you are calling is set to “Do Not Disturb” or “Focus” mode your call will go to traditional voicemail like in the scenario above. A message will show on the contact’s phone and they will be able to accept the call, but the transcription will not show.
If you are not an existing contact and the person you are calling has their phone set to "silence unknown callers," the contact's phone will not ring; however, your call will be sent to live voicemail. The contact is notified that you are leaving a message and can click "Tap to view" to read the transcription and accept your call.
Your contact will be notified of your call and Caller ID, with the ability to either accept or decline the call. If declined or unanswered, your call will go to traditional voicemail.
The experience is the same as the scenarios displayed above, however the contact’s device will display the name on your contact record on notifications and voicemail screens.
If a contact blocks your number, the call will immediately be dropped (even if you are in the middle of your Live Voicemail). Your number will permanently be blocked from that contact’s phone, and subsequent calls will go straight to voicemail with no notification provided to the contact.
Apple has stated that they will not transcribe any calls identified as Spam/Scam Likely by the user’s phone carrier.
Note: we highly recommend you submit your numbers to the FreeCallerRegistry which is among the best ways to protect your numbers. If you use PhoneBurner numbers, you can elect to have our team do this for you.
Live Voicemail creates a number of new scenarios to prepare for as you engage in outreach.
Understanding the scenarios above isn't just relevant to your voicemail strategy, but to your overall strategy as well. Contacts today have more context to decide who to engage with. They wield more power to block those they don't wish to hear from.
As these trends advance, the winners will be those engaging in personalized 1-to-1 outreach.
With PhoneBurner, you have the most efficient and scalable 1-to-1 platform on the market. As your partner, we're continuing to innovate to help you earn more live engagements and maximize the value of your hard-earned leads.
Please note: Guidance is provided based on our team's continued testing of iOS 17 including beta versions. The experience may continue to evolve now that Live Voicemail has officially launched, so experiences can not be guaranteed. We'll continue to update resources as we are aware of changes, and as new guidance is available.
