Voicemail Greeting Tips

Basic Elements of Good Voicemail Greetings

• Greeting
• Your Name
• Your Company Name and/or Department Name
• Statement that you cannot take their call right now
• Invitation to leave a message
• When they can expect a return call
• Who they can contact for immediate assistance (if applicable)
• No longer than 20-25 seconds
• Avoid giving out too much information and making an overly long greeting

Examples of External Voicemail Greetings

• Hi. This is John Smith with Betenbough Homes. Unfortunately I cannot take your call right now. Please leave a message, and I will return your call as soon as I can. Thanks.
• Hello. You have reached John Smith at Betenbough Homes. If you would leave me a message, I will give you a call back as soon as possible. If you need immediate assistance, please call (806)797-9494. Thank you for calling.
• Hi. This is John Smith with Betenbough Homes. Your call is very important to me, but I can’t answer the phone at this time. If you would leave me a message after the tone, I will return your call as soon as I am able.

Examples of Temporary or "Out of Office" Greetings

• Hello. This is John Smith with Betenbough Homes. I will be out of the office until Wednesday, September 3rd. If you need immediate assistance, please call my associate Jane Doe at (806)797-9494. Otherwise, please leave a message and I will return your call when I return. Thank you for calling.
• You have reached the voicemail of John Smith with Betenbough Homes. Today is Wednesday, August 31st and I am out of the office. I will be returning tomorrow, September 1st. If you would like to leave a message, I will return your call then. If this is an emergency, please call (806)797-9494. Thank you.
• Hi. You have reached the voicemail of John Smith at Betenbough Homes. I am currently out of the office and will return on September 1st. I will be checking my voicemails occasionally throughout the day. So please leave me a message and I will return your call as soon as possible. If you need additional assistance, please call my assistant, Jane Doe, at (806)797-9494. Thanks.

How To Back Up Your iPhone

Why Should I Back Up My Phone?

Because we are constantly using our iPhones, we will all inevitably either break it or the software might mess up to the point we need to completely wipe it and start over. It isn’t really a case of if one of these scenarios will happen, as much as when will one happen.

• The good news: If you back up your phone regularly, we can get you a new device and you can just restore your settings, apps, files, etc and be up and running in minutes … like it never happened.
• The bad news: If you don’t back up your phone we can get you a new device, but you will have to set up all your content from scratch and you will likely lose some of your data (see list under What Gets Backed Up section below) … which can be a painful and frustrating process.
• The takeaway: You must proactively back up your iPhone on a regular basis (at least monthly) to avoid the “starting from scratch” scenario and potential data loss.

A few people have been frustrated when we told them we couldn’t recover the stuff from their old phone. Ultimately it is your responsibility to make sure your phone is backed up. Although it would be great if we could recover stuff after something has happened to the phone, in reality it is too late at that point … if you don’t already have a recent backup there is nothing we can do.

Creating a Backup

1. Decide which computer you want to sync your iPhone with. iTunes can only sync with one computer. A lot of people choose to do this on their home computer, so it can sync with the music they have saved on that computer. You cannot do this from a WYSE terminal. If you primarily use a WYSE terminal you can use a shared workstation (like the one in the conference room), or use your home computer.
2. Plug your iPhone into the computer (using the USB cable that came with your phone), and open iTunes
3. After your phone is plugged in, it should automatically start syncing your phone. If you have never connected the iPhone to that computer before it will walk you through a couple of simple steps before it syncs the phone for the first time. Once iTunes starts the sync, it will automatically back up the phone. You should see a status message at the top that says Backing up:
   
   
   Note: If you have changed the settings so your iPhone doesn’t sync automatically when you plug it in or the Backing up message just never appears, you will need to manually force a back up to run. To do that, right-click on the phone under the Devices section, and choose Back Up. Most people can ignore this step, because it should happen automatically by default.
   

Restoring from Backup

1. Plug your iPhone into the computer, and open iTunes.
2. Right-click on the phone under the Devices section, and choose Restore from Backup…
   

What Gets Backed Up?

Here is a list of the some of the things stored on your iPhone you could potentially lose if you don't create regular backups:

• Photos & Videos
• SMS and MMS (pictures and video) messages
• Notes
• Google Maps bookmarks & recent searches
• Safari bookmarks, cookies, history, auto-fill information, and offline data
• Email, Calendar, & Contact account configuration (to connect to our Exchange server)
• Contact Favorites & Contacts stored locally on the phone
• Call history
• Apps (including most settings, preferences, and data)
• In-app purchases
• Home screen layout (how you have organized the apps on different screens)
• Google Maps bookmarks & recent searches
• Network settings (saved wireless hotspots, VPN settings, network preferences)
• Paired Bluetooth devices (e.g. hands-free headsets)
• YouTube bookmarks and history
• Location service preferences for apps and websites you have allowed to use your location
• Nike + iPod saved workouts & settings
• Saved suggestion corrections (these are saved automatically as you reject suggested corrections)
• Voice memos
• Voicemail token (so you don’t have to remember your voicemail password)
• Wallpapers

How To Change Voicemail Greeting on iPhone

1. Press the Phone app icon
   
2. Go to the Voicemail tab in the bottom menu, and click the Greeting button.
3. Ensure Custom is selected, then click the Record button. Your iPhone should now be recording, so say your greeting clearly at natural volume and tone.
   
   
   For tips and examples of good voicemail greetings, check out our Voicemail Greeting Tips post.
4. When you finish, click Stop. To review the message, click Play.
   • Happy with the new message? Click the Save in the top-right corner
   • Want to try again? Click the Record button again
   • Want to just stick the message you had? Click the Cancel button in the top-left corner

How To Silence A Call On iPhone

When a call comes in, you may not want to answer it, or you may need to stop your iPhone from ringing or vibrating (this is especially helpful when you are in a meeting). You can either silence or decline an incoming call.

When you silence a call, you still have a chance to answer it, until the call goes to voicemail. When you decline a call, the call is silenced and sent directly to voicemail.

Silence a call
Press the Sleep/Wake button once.


Decline a call
Press the Sleep/Wake button twice quickly.

How To Set Up Your Out Of Office Reply In Outlook Web Access

Anytime you are going to be out of the office for more than a day and won't be regularly checking your email, you should set up your email to automatically reply to people that send you a message during that time period so they know you are out and also tells them who they should contact in your absence if the request is urgent. To configure these automatic reply emails, we will use a feature called Out of Office Assistant.
Although you can do all this stuff in the Outlook desktop client, I will show how you can do it using Outlook Web Access. Everyone can access that, so we simply suggest doing it this way even if you typically use the Outlook desktop client.

1. Open a web browser and go to mail.betenbough.com
2. In the top-right corner of the page, click the link for Options
3. In the menu on the left side of the page, click on Out of Office Assistant
   
4. Configure the page like the example below, then click Save

How To Email Multiple Photos From iPhone

Most people know how to share a single photo by attaching it to an email, but there are times when you might need to attach a few photos to an email. Instead of sending multiple emails with one photo each, this walks you through how to attach those to a single email.

1. First, go to the Photos app and click on the album that contains the pictures you want to send (this is likely the Camera Roll album).  After you have selected the album, you should see something like what is shown below. Click the arrow button in the top-right corner.
   
   
   After you clicked the arrow button, the screen should have changed to look something like this:
   
2. Click on each of the photos you want to email.  As you do that it will check off the ones you have clicked. You can attach up to 5 photos in a single email.
   
3. Click the Share button, and it will ask you if you want to send the photos via Email or MMS (i.e. text message). Select Email.
   

That’s it.  After you clicked Email, it will open up a new email and each of the photos you selected will be attached.

How To: Take A Screenshot On iPhone

This is a feature that Apple seems to have snuck in, but we've found quite a few uses for it.  It essentially takes a picture of whatever is displayed on your phone, and saves that image in the Photos app under Camera Roll.

To take a screenshot, just press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time (shown below).  The screen will flash white, as a queue that a photo has been taken.

To access the screenshot, just go to the Photo app and click on Camera Roll.  The image that was created should be the last item in that album.  You can share the image via email or text just like you can any other photo.

Tips For Writing A Good 'How To' Blog Post

1. Include screenshots & videos. Almost all good “how to” articles include a few screenshots, especially if the instructions are more than just a couple steps or the interface they are using is very complicated. Keep in mind that most people will probably just scan through the screenshots, and will not read every word. In fact, one of the very few well-documented facts about the Web is that people tend to spend very little time reading a page. Instead we scan them looking for words, phrases, or images that catch our eye. So if your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards instead of finely crafted literature … design great billboards. Your objective should be to minimize instructions as much as possible by using an appropriate number of self-explanatory screenshots. Each screenshot should be as small as possible and only contain enough context for the user to understand what is being shown (i.e. what page, section, or window you are referencing). You should callout important things directly in the image itself, not just in text on the page above or below the image (remember they probably aren’t going to read that stuff). The image should be always be placed inline, as close to the related content as possible. Alternatively, you could make a screencast or other video, which walks through the process. Videos are especially helpful when it would take more than 5 or 6 screenshots to illustrate the steps necessary. Videos also allow you to add some instructions as a voice-over, which is more likely to convey the information rather than hoping people will read the instructions. Just try avoid long pauses in the video where you are speaking, but performing any action on the screen (if that happens people will likely fast forward past it).
2. Omit needless words. The main thing to remember about instructions is that no one is going to read them – at least not until after repeated attempts at “muddling through” have failed. And even then, if the instructions are wordy, the odds of users finding the information they need is pretty low. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum. E.B. White’s 17th rule in The Elements of Style: “17: Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
3. Make specific phrases they will look for bold. If you are referencing the specific name of a button, link, menu option, or the title of a particular section, textbox, configuration option, etc … make that text bold. Often times when someone is following directions they have the instructions up and are reading through them as they are actually performing whatever the instructions are about. They will be continually doing a context switch back and forth from the instructions to the application. For example, they might read an instruction that says “When you are finished click the Submit Changes button.” Making the text bold draws attention to the specific phrase they need to look for and has imprinted that information at a deeper level than the rest of the text. Also, many times they might read the instructions, transition to the other application, and then think “What was the name of the button again?” If the specific text they are looking for is bold, it allows them to find it with a quick glimpse instead of re-reading a section of the instructions.
4. Use Good Titles & Headings. Like a good variable name in software, or a good hostname for a network device ... a title should give you a good idea about what a particular post is focused on (and what it isn't). For example, if there was a blog post about how to attach multiple photos to a single email from your iPhone, you could use the title "How To Send Multiple Photos" or "Sharing Files from iPhone" ... but both of those fall short of encapsulating the primary focus of the post. A title that comes much closer might be something like "How To Email Multiple Photos from iPhone". As a general rule of thumb, if it is a "How To" post ... the title should start with "How To ...". Try to make the title as short as possible, but not shorter. You might also try to think from a user's perspective, "What word would they Google to try to find this information" and then use most of those words in the blog post title. These same principles apply to section headings within a post. Try to strike the right balance between them being descriptive and terse. Remember that users will likely just be scanning the post looking for the part that talks about whatever they forgot or are having trouble with, so good headings can really help them scan through a post quickly to find the section of information they need.
5. Organize the content. Spend a couple minutes trying to think through the most elegant and simple way to present the content. For example, should it just be in one or two paragraphs, an ordered list (i.e. 1,2,3), an unordered list (i.e. bullet points), a table, a chart, broken into multiple sections each with a distinct heading, etc. After you finish the initial draft, review the content again and see if there is a better way to organize the information so it will speak more clearly or concisely.
6. Add lots of hyperlinks. If you ever reference a URL, make it into an actual hyperlink … instead of just typing it as text. In fact, if you are referencing a resource on the web (even one of your own blog posts) or something that has a related page that explains it more in-depth make sure you link to that as well.  Also, instead of writing out a URL directly in the content (which can make the paragraph harder to read), try to simply make the related text a link.  Examples:
   • The DateFormat enumeration used in SSRS expressions is the same as the DateFormat enumeration in Visual Basic.
   • I was recently attempting to build documentation for a few projects using Sandcastle, a free engine provided by Microsoft that compiles …
   • I googled this error, and found this post about multi-targeting …
   • In my recent post on How To: Find Missing Indexes in SQL Server, I showed how …
7. Don't Give More Than One Way To Skin A Cat. Often there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal. However, if you try to explain all of the different ways ... it typically ends up being more confusing than helpful. If the user figures out another way to do something, great ... but a good "How To" article should focus on the single most common and/or simplest way to perform the operation.
8. Attach appropriate Labels. For each blog post, try to think of all of the categories the content is related to and add a label for each of those. This will help people easily find all of the posts related to a particular subject using the blog's tag cloud.

For more tips on writing good web content, read some of the excerpts from Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think.