How to write a phone greeting that doesn't sound like a recording

A greeting has four seconds to do three things: tell the caller they've reached the right place, tell them who's speaking, and ask what they need. Everything else is decoration. The moment a greeting starts selling ("Brisbane's most trusted plumbers, servicing the northside and beyond") the caller stops listening and starts waiting.

These are the actual presets, word for word, with a plumber's details filled in:

1. The one we recommend. "Giday, you've reached Smith Plumbing — Verity speaking, on a recorded line. How can I help you?" Warm, says where they've landed, and the recording notice sits in the middle where it sounds like a person mentioning something rather than a machine announcing it.
2. Straight to it. "Giday. Smith Plumbing — Verity speaking, on a recorded line. How can I help you?" Two words shorter. Suits a trade line where callers are usually in a hurry. The full stop after Giday is there so the business name doesn't run into the opener.
3. First names. "Giday, you've reached Smith Plumbing — Verity here, on a recorded line. How can I help you?" A touch more casual. "Here" rather than "speaking".

You pick one at signup with a tap, and you can change it, or write your own, from your dashboard. We run the first one on our own line.

Every AI receptionist makes a record of the call; the transcript is the product. In several Australian states the people on a call have to know it's being recorded, and because calls cross state borders, the safe standard is the strictest state's. So the notice is in every Giday greeting and can't be removed.

What matters for the greeting is where it goes. A separate announcement before the receptionist picks up ("this call may be recorded") hands the caller two voices in a row, and that seam is where people hang up. Inside the greeting, in the same breath as the name, it's five words the caller barely registers before they're being asked how they can be helped. Our own measured calls told us that: delivery loses callers, wording doesn't. The reasoning is in why every call opens on a recorded line.

The editor on your dashboard lets you write the whole thing. It will keep you honest on four counts, because it refuses a greeting that:

• leaves out the recording notice, or puts it after the question ("How can I help? This call is being recorded" is too late);
• says or implies the receptionist is a person ("you're speaking with a real person", "not a robot");
• calls the receptionist AI in the greeting itself (callers who ask get told straight away; the greeting isn't the place to announce it);
• runs long. If your greeting is a paragraph, it's a recording.

Within those lines, write the way you'd answer the phone yourself. "Giday, Smith Plumbing here — Bazza on the tools, on a recorded line. What can I sort out?" is a perfectly good greeting, and the editor will accept it.

1. A slogan. Nobody who rings a plumber wants to hear the tagline.
2. "Your call is important to us." It tells the caller it isn't.
3. A list of services. They know what you do. That's why they rang.
4. "Please note". Nobody says "please note" out loud.
5. The word "today". "How can I help you today?" is how every phone menu in the country talks. Drop the last word and it's a person again.

Your receptionist can be called whatever you like. Ours is Verity. A name the caller can repeat back matters more than a clever one, and the greeting should say it once, early, so a caller who wants to ask for her by name can.