Please leave a message after the beep.
We all love our mobile phones for many reasons. They’re great for staying connected on social media, capturing every beautiful moment with their camera, or Googling the answer to the tie breaker question on that week’s pub quiz.
But while we all spend so much time using them, there are a few features that frustrate the life out of us.
One key thing that springs to mind is a phrase that’s enough to make our ears bleed. ‘Please leave a message after the beep.’
If it’s not the robotic sounding voice that does it for you, it’s the lengthy beep that sounds like something out of a police interrogation in one of those tiny rooms you see on the TV.
Of course, you’re only subjected to this horror when you call someone else, but perhaps you’re so familiar with how terrible it is that you want to prevent others from having to listen to it when you miss a call from them.
Luckily for you, iPhone users can set up their voicemail to play a voicemail greeting that won’t drive people crackers. Here’s how to get started.
Put on your posh voice.
1) Head to the phone app on your iPhone.
2) Tap Voicemail in the bottom right corner.
3) Select Set Up Now.
4) Create a voicemail password.
5) Choose a greeting – Default or Custom.
If you decide to create a custom voicemail, that’s where things can get fun. Of course, you can do the generic ‘Hi this is Alan, can’t get to the phone right now. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.’
But why be generic when you can be funny? How about ‘Hello. I’m not here right now, so leave a message! Make it short, make it sweet, or I’ll have to press delete.’ Or keep it short and sweet with a ‘You know the drill.’
If you suddenly realise that ‘1234’ is not a difficult password to guess and you don’t fancy having anyone else hacking into your voicemail and listening to your messages, you better change it quickly.
1) Open up the Settings app on your iPhone.
2) Scroll down and tap Phone.
3) Tap Change Voicemail Password.
4) Enter your new four or six-digit passcode.
5) Re-enter the passcode.
6) Tap Done.
Listen up.
When someone leaves a voicemail on your iPhone there are a number of ways you can listen to what they have to say.
On your own iPhone:
1) Head to the Phone app on your mobile.
2) Tap Voicemail.
3) Follow the instructions.
On someone else’s phone:
1) Dial your own mobile number.
2) Press * to bypass your greeting.
3) Enter your voicemail password.
4) Listen to your messages.
Fancy something more visual?
Visual voicemail is a quicker and easier way to manage your voicemails on your iPhone. It takes away the lengthy process of calling up your voicemail service and lays everything out in front of you.
Visual voicemail is not an iPhone trick, it’s all to do with your network provider. If your mobile plan supports visual voicemail, you’re in luck.
1) Go to the Phone app and select Voicemail.
2) Tap Set Up Now.
3) If you haven’t already created a password, create one now.
4) Enter your password again and then tap Done.
You’ll now be able to see all of your voicemails in one place.
1) Open the Phone app on your iPhone.
2) Tap Voicemail in the bottom right corner of the screen.
3) Tap a voicemail to open up the playback options.
4) Choose Speaker if you want to play the message from the iPhone speaker.
5) Tap Audio if you want to listen through your earphones or speaker.
6) Press Play to listen.
7) Press pause to pause the message.
8) Drag the slider bar to the left and right to rewind or fast forward the message.
Welcome to voicemail.
This handy guide will help you on your way to understanding the ins and outs of voicemail. Set your creative greeting message now and have people lining up just waiting for you to ignore their calls.
This one’s primarily for the iPhone users of the world and is set to make your life so much easier.
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