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The greeting is the one line every single caller hears, so it earns more attention than anything else on the page. You set a fixed greeting in the Configure tab, and you control whether callers are allowed to talk over it.

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Before you start

  • An agent, even an unfinished one. See Create your first agent.
  • Five minutes.
  • Your business name spelled the way you want it said out loud.
  • You will be working in your agent’s Configure tab.

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Steps

1

Open the Configure tab

Open your agent and go to Configure. Custom Greeting sits under Agent Information, below Voice.
2

Write the greeting

Keep it to one sentence. Say who is answering, then hand the call straight to the caller. For example “Thanks for calling Marston Dental, how can I help?”Leave it empty and your agent opens with whatever your instructions say instead. Filling it in is the way to guarantee the same opening on every call.
3

Decide whether callers can interrupt it

Interrupt Greeting is on by default, which lets a caller start talking while your agent is still speaking the greeting. Leave it on unless you have a specific reason not to.
4

Save and call it

Save, then call your own number and listen to the first three seconds. See Test your agent yourself.

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You will know it worked when

You call your number and hear exactly the sentence you typed, said at a pace you would be happy for a customer to hear, and you can cut in over it without your agent talking on regardless.

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What to put in it, in order

  1. Who is answering. Your business name, said the way customers say it. This is the only part callers actually need.
  2. An invitation to speak. “How can I help?” is enough. It tells the caller the line is live and it is their turn.
  3. Nothing else. Opening hours, promotions, and menu options all belong later in the call, if at all. Every extra clause is time a caller spends waiting to explain why they rang.
Two things to avoid. Do not stack questions, because a caller answers only the last one. Do not read a disclaimer first, because callers hang up on disclaimers.

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Why you should leave Interrupt Greeting on

Real callers start talking as soon as they hear a voice. With Interrupt Greeting on, your agent stops and listens, which is what a person would do. With it off, your agent finishes the greeting while the caller is mid sentence, and the caller repeats themselves and starts the call annoyed. Turn it off only when the greeting carries something the caller must hear in full, such as a recording notice you are required to play.

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What else you can do here

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If it did not work

Your agent says something other than what you typed. Check the greeting saved, and check your instructions do not open with a competing greeting. When both exist, they can fight and the result reads as a stumble. The greeting is cut off at the start. The first fraction of a second can be lost while the line connects. Begin with your business name rather than a short word like “Hi”, so nothing important is in the part that can clip. Callers keep talking over it and getting ignored. Interrupt Greeting is off. Turn it on. Your business name is mispronounced. Add it to the recognition vocabulary with a pronunciation. Rewriting the greeting phonetically works but looks wrong to everyone who edits it later. See Teach it names and terms. It sounds rushed. That is voice and pace, not wording. See Choose a voice.

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FAQ

Open your agent, go to Configure, and edit Custom Greeting under Agent Information. Save, and the next caller hears the new wording. A call already in progress finishes on the old one.
One sentence: your business name, then an invitation to speak. “Thanks for calling Marston Dental, how can I help?” does everything a greeting needs to do. Leave hours, offers, and menus out of it.
Yes, and by default they can. Interrupt Greeting is on out of the box, so a caller who starts talking straight away is heard instead of talked over. Turn it off only if the greeting has to be heard in full.
Your agent opens with whatever your instructions tell it to say, which can vary slightly from call to call. Fill in Custom Greeting when you want the identical opening every time.
Where you already hold the contact, yes, and it lands well for returning customers. Turn on Contact Memory so your agent knows who is calling. See Remember callers between calls.
That depends on where you and your callers are. Some places require it. If you need it, put it in the greeting and turn Interrupt Greeting off so it cannot be skipped. See Recordings, transcripts and retention.
The first moment of audio can be lost while the phone line finishes connecting. Start with your business name rather than a one syllable word, so nothing that matters sits in the clipped part.