Voice over Masterclass - Nailing The Read - Voicemail and On-Hold Messaging

1. Nailing the read - Voicemail and On-Hold Messaging Intro: So here's the thing about being a voice actor. This is a very competitive field, and those that Desire toe have long term success in this field. All have one thing in common. They constantly seek to get better. Therefore, to give yourself the best possible chance of success, you must constantly hone your craft. I'm Donald Fits Gil, junior voice actor and course creator, and I am going to help you hone your craft through a series of forces that I call nailing the read Blitz Go. Here's the deal. The courses in this Siri's nailing the Read assume that you have a basic understanding of voice acting. So if you are brand new to the voice acting world and this is probably not the course for you, and I would suggest checking out my course, the official D i Y guys, a voice acting before delving into this, Siri's got its nailing. The reed will consist of five different areas of voice acting, voicemail and on hold messaging. Conversational reads promo reads, character reads and long for narration. I believe that at the end of this five course, Siri's you will be a better voice actor. As for this course, let's take a look now at what you'll learn. Voicemail and on hold Messaging offers huge opportunities for voice actors. There are many voice actors and, for that matter, many voice acting companies that make their living solely from voicemail and on hold. Messaging this area voice acting is massive, and in this force we're really going to break down this area toe a micro level to give you the tools necessary to be a force in the voicemail. On on hold messaging realm of voice acting, you'll start your journey by building what I call the customer business profile. Once we have built this profile, we can better understand how to approach the voicemail on on hold messages. Voiceover. Then we'll look at how to break down our script by using the customer business profile. When you finish this course, you'll not only understand Tal to nail the read, you'll understand why enroll today and become a better voice actor. See you inside 2. Voicemail and On-Hold Messaging Intro: voice mail is a centralized Elektronik system that can store messages. The process flow works like this. Someone calls a number. The voice mail system answers the coal. The voice mail system plays a recorded message and then gives the caller the option to leave a message on hold. Messaging is what a caller hears. Once they're placed on hold, the process flow works like this. Someone calls the number and at some point is placed on hold. They could be waiting in a queue to speak with someone, or they could have already spoken with someone, and that person on the other end needed to place them on hold while they're on hold. The caller hears a message, either with music or words or with music and words. You also have an automated attendant or auto attendant that is essentially a voicemail system that allows the client to choose where they are routed. You know when you call the company and a recording says for English Press one. But I espanol Numero does for customer service, press two and so on and so on and so on. In many cases, these auto attendant systems are essentially a combination. Ah, voicemail on hold messaging in artificial intelligence. As I've said in other courses, voice melon on hold messaging can be one of your biggest moneymakers. As a voice actor, just take a look at your own hometown. Have you ever noticed how many businesses you pass by on your way to work or on your way to the grocery store? Really, just try to take notice next time you're on the road of how many small businesses you come across. All of these businesses could use the help of a voice actor, especially if they place customers on hold. 3. Building the Customer/Business Profile: So now I'd like to do what I call building the customer business profile. This is where we really want to delve into the desires of both parties, the customer and the business. Now, obviously, if the business already has in mind how they want you to narrate their voicemail and on hold messaging, then you wouldn't have to go through this process. You would simply need to read it, how they want it to be read. But if you are approaching some business and explaining how you could be an asset to them by narrating their voicemail on on hold messaging, this process will not only help to show your value, it will also help you to determine how their voicemail and on hold messaging should be read when building the customer business profile, We want to take a look at several things. The business who is calling the business? What does the caller want to hear? What does the business want the caller to here? Let's take a look at a pizza restaurant. Let's call it Mama's Pizzeria at Mama's Pizzeria. They have pizza available for Dinan delivery or take out. So who was calling this business? We can safely assume that most of the people calling Mama's Pizzeria are people looking for pizza and, more specifically, pizza for delivery, or take out more than likely people that air dining in wouldn't need to call before coming to the restaurant. What does the caller want to hear? Ideally, I would imagine they want to hear someone's voice so they can order their pizza. But if several people call it once, they may have to speak with an agent, they don't want to hear a voice mail. If someone calls a pizza restaurant for pizza and they get a businesses voicemail than that business just lost out on some revenue. I know this may seem obvious to some, but these are the things you need to think through when you are presenting yourself as an expert. So if they can't speak toe a person right away, they probably want to know that someone will be with them shortly. And there's a good chance that they'll want to hear about special deals that are going on right now as well. What does Mama's pizzeria want their customers to here? Ideally, they would like for their employees to greet everyone on the first ring when they call, but they know that in reality that probably can't happen. Just like the customer. Mama's Pizzeria does not want the customer to go to voicemail so we can forget about doing voicemail. In this scenario, the pizzeria wants the customer to know that they value their business. They'll be with them shortly and that they have special deals just for them. Now that we've answered these questions, let's summarize what we've learned. We have a pizzeria. That pizzeria has customers calling that want pizza. Those customers want to speak with someone, and those customers presumably want deals. The pizzeria wants to speak to the customer, and they want to sell them on their special deals. Knowing all of this, how do you think we should narrate their on hold messaging script? We know the details now. What is the feeling we want to convey when narrating the on hold messaging script to me? In this scenario, we need to show urgency while showing appreciation and trying to sell. We'll talk a little bit later about how we do that, but for now I wanted to show you the purpose for building a customer business profile. We're trying to build a representative model of the typical customer to gain an idea of how we should approach this voiceover. Here's a pro tip. You can actually use this to help you write the voicemail on on hold messaging script as well, if that's something you're asked to do. Also keep in mind something not all businesses will need a voicemail on on hold messaging. If a customer isn't ever placed on hold, there's really no reason for the business toe have on hold Messaging. Voicemail, however, is a little different in our example with Mama's Pizzeria. The business wasn't heavily concerned about a voicemail because during business hours they didn't want the customer to leave a message anyway. But what about after hours? Is it possible that the pizzeria would want to have a voice mail system to record after our messages from customers? I guess it's possible, but definitely not a priority. They may just want to let the phone ring after hours so they don't get someone who thinks they're placing an order by leaving a message. Some would argue that any business that is not open 24 hours a day, seven days a week needs a voice mail, but in practice you'll find that not everyone will see it this way. Let's take a look at another example. Let's say that a personal injury law firm is looking for a voice actor to read their voicemail. This law firm approaches you and ask you to use their professional judgment. When Nair rating their script, How would you proceed? Well, we want to first build out the customer business profile by answering the following questions. The business. A personal injury law firm who is calling the business someone who was looking for legal representation and looking to sue someone or some company. What does the caller want to hear The collar wants to hear assurance that this firm will win their case on voicemail. The collar wants to know that they will be contacted back soon and again, they want to hear assurance that this firm will win their case. Weaken Disregard the on hold portion because we're simply looking at the voicemail for this firm. What does the business want the caller to hear? The law firm wants the potential customer to know that they are ready and qualified toe handle their case. They also want potential clients to know that there is no charge unless they win, and they will contact them shortly. And as we stated before, we're not looking to do a non hold message for the law firm on Lee. A voicemail. Now that we've answered these questions, let's summarize what we've learned. We have a personal injury law firm. We have a customer that wants to speak with someone soon and wants assurance that this firm is for them. We have a law firm that wants to show potential clients that they're ready and qualified to handle their case to me. In this scenario, we would need to narrate this voicemail in an authoritative and articulate way. Unlike the pizza restaurant, you probably don't want to sound too friendly. Who wants a friendly lawyer to represent them? Not me. In life, it's natural for people to see things differently. Building your customer business profile is no exception. You may see things one way as a voice actor and your clients the person that's paying you may see it differently. The rule that I stated in the official D. I Y guides, a voice acting still applies. It's not right unless your client says that it's right. The main thing that you're doing when you're going through this process as a voice actor is adding value for your client. You're not just reading a script. You're researching the customer business relationship, gaining an understanding of what each party is looking for, and then narrating your script in such a way that both parties air satisfied, got it. Now let's take a look now at how we mail the read. 4. How to nail the read - Voicemail and On-Hold Messaging: At this point, we've gone over how we can determine the best way to narrate a client's voicemail and on hold messaging script. But what if we can't determine the answers to our customer business profile? For whatever reason, be it lack of time to research or lack of understanding of what the business does. How do we approach the voiceover without the benefits of client direction or customer business profile. We can crush most voicemail and on hold messaging scripts by using the following techniques . Smile. You can actually hear a smile. Companies typically want to sound welcoming and inviting, so make sure to smile when you read your voicemail and on hold messaging copy before you start recording. Put a smile on your face. Then go. No, your focus points. Your focus points are what you should give more attention to in your read things like the company name slogans, deals and special offers. And as with any voiceover, you want to be clear when you speak, but even more so with voicemail. Oftentimes your voices instructing the caller to do something. For this reason alone, you should do your very best to be as articulate as possible just by doing these three things you can crush most voicemail and on hold messaging scripts. Let's look at this a little bit closer. How do we approach this after we have built our customer business profile? If you recall our earlier example of Mama's Pizzeria, we said that we need to show urgency while showing appreciation and trying to sell. Let's take a look at the Mama's Pizzeria on hold messaging script at a normal pace and tone . Thanks for calling Mama's Pizzeria. Someone will be with you shortly. Our special today is too large two topping pizzas for only 12 99 At Mama's Pizzeria we take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients just the way Mom used to make. So sit tight and will be with you in a flash. So let's break this down while looking at our customer business profile showing urgency. How do we show urgency? Usually, the best way to show urgency is by making the voiceover upbeat and at a pace that is faster than your normal pace by simply speeding up our read weaken audibly show our sense of urgency. Thanks for calling Mama's Pizzeria. Someone will be with you shortly. Our special today is too large. Two topping pizzas for only 12 99 At Mama's Pizzeria we take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients just the way Mom used to make so sit tights and will be with you in a flash showing appreciation. I like to show my appreciation with the smile, and sometimes I let that smile borderline on a laugh. I like to smile so hard that I almost laugh. I call it a hard smile. Imagine you worked in a call centre, where you started off every call with the same line. I'm sure some of you out there can relate to what I'm about to say. Let's say you said thank you for calling customer service. This is Donald. How can I help you over and over and over. Now, let's say that while you are waiting for a coal, someone started tickling. You were told you a really funny joke to the point where you were literally laughing out loud. Then all of a sudden you hear that ring in your ear that lets you know that there's another call waiting. Imagine how you would say your normal introduction line while trying to hold back this laughter. It would sound something like this queue. The laughter have recalled the customer service. This is Donald. How can I help you? You see what I did there. Now I want to add this hard smile with my sense of urgency and read our mama's pizzeria script again. Thanks for Colon Mama's Pizzeria. Someone will be with you shortly. Our special today is too large. Two topping pizzas for only 12 99 At Mama's Pizzeria we take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients just the way Mom used to make. So sit tight and will be with you in a flash. Now let's look at the last part of the customer business profile for Mama's Pizzeria selling. Remember we said that we need to show urgency while showing appreciation and trying to sell . So how do we sell? Very subtly. We don't wanna beat the person over the head with this and sound too aggressive. We simply want to amplify our deals by amplifying the deals in the script. We're turning our deals into focus points, so let's write out our focus points in the script two large two topping pizzas for only 12 99 high quality organic ingredients. And Mom, Now you may be asking, Why did I pick out the ingredients and mom to use as focus points is? Well, good question. I chose those items because I not only want to tell the customer the price of the special, I want them to see the value in the price, as in Look at what you're getting for this price. Two large two topping pizzas, high quality ingredients and mom for only 12 99. Or at least the way mom used to make it. But you get what I'm saying. So how do we bring attention to these items? The easiest way is simply to change your cadence When you come to these items, you can change your tone on these items, or you can be more upbeat with these items. The key here on these focus points is toe. Find a way to say it differently than you were saying. The rest of the script like this, we take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients. That's with no change. In cadence. We take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients. That's what the change in cadence and tone we take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients. That's what the different change in cadence and tone got it. Now we want to pay extra attention to the price because, in my opinion, that's the major focus point for the script. We said earlier that you get to large two topping pizzas, high quality ingredients and mom for only 12 99 not 30 99 not even 2099. But for only 12 99 you get this special offer, and this is what we want to convey. Don't worry. You get all of this for only 12 99. If it helps you to read the script, you can actually record in those filler words like not 30 99 not even 2099 then later delete them before sending out the final file. Let's listen now to the entire script again, bringing all three attributes of your customer business profile, urgency, appreciation and selling. Thanks for calling Mama's Pizzeria. Someone will be with you shortly. Our special today is too large. Two topping pizzas for only 12 99 at Mama's Pizzeria. We take pride and only serving you high quality organic ingredients just the way Mom used to make. So sit tight and will be with you in a flash. This is how we put it all together. This is what makes you a voice actor. Are you still with me? Let's take a look at our personal injury law firm voicemail. After doing our customer business profile, we determine that we need to narrate this voicemail in an authoritative and articulate way . Take one minute and decide how you would read the following script in an authoritative and articulate way. I think this read is a little more straightforward than Mama's Pizzeria were simply trying to speak authoritatively and articulately. So how do we do this? First, we need to remove the smile. I know I told you earlier that a smile was important in most voicemail on on hold, Messaging reads. But there are some exceptions when you need to sound authoritative to the point of aggressive. A smile isn't always the best thing. I'm not sure where you're from, but where I'm from In Texas, most of the personal injury lawyer commercials are very aggressive. They're trying to convey a sense of toughness that says to potential clients, I will fight for you to get every penny you deserve. I'm tough. That's the image that most of these lawyers want to present, at least where I'm from. So we have to keep this toughness in mind when reading their voicemail. We don't want to sound overly aggressive like they do in their commercials, but we do want to sound very matter of fact. But because this is a law office, being aggressive isn't the entire objective. We have to be articulate as well. Otherwise we risk sounding incompetence. This is how I would read this. You've reached the law offices of fit, skill and fit skill. We're currently out of the office or meeting with another client Has someone's negligence caused you harm at fit, skill and fit skill. We make those that caused you harm pay. And remember, you don't pay a dime unless we win. Please leave your name and number and someone from our office will contact you as soon as possible. Got it. Good 5. Nailing the read summary - Voicemail and On-Hold Messaging: I hope this makes sense because those that get this right can achieve a lot of success in the voicemail and on hold messaging field, Anyone can leave a simple voicemail message without any thought or consideration of who is calling and why they're calling. But a professional will take the time to research and uncover the best way to deliver the clients read. If you are presenting yourself as a professional, then you should do what professionals do and give as much value as possible to your clients with every transaction. I've gotten so much business from clients who heard my voice mail recordings when they were calling another business. There have been so many times that someone has come to me and said, Hey, I heard the voice mail you did for X Y Z Company. Can you do the same for me? Every time you do a voice recording for someone you're advertising for yourself people by your voice over and play it for other people? How cool is that you'll find when going through this process that much of our work in nailing the reed is done. Before we actually read the script, It's this preparation that will set you apart from your competition. Proper preparation is key. I hope you enjoyed this course voicemail and on hold messaging. Just one course in our five core Siri's called Nailing the Read. The next course up in nailing the reed is the conversational read Thanks again for giving me a little bit of your time and trusting me to help you get you to where you want to be. As a voice actor, I hope this was insightful till next time.