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Office & Administration vocabulary · Phone Calls & Etiquette

Phone message

Meaning in office & administration, with examples

nounCore term

In office & administration, phone message means: Information written down or recorded from a phone call for someone who was unavailable at the time.

In Turkish: telefon mesajı

How it is used

Common at reception and in shared offices for caller names, numbers, reasons for calling, and requested call-backs.

Example sentences

  1. I left a phone message for the finance director with the supplier's number and the reference for the delayed invoice.

    Here, phone message means a note containing key call details so the absent person can respond later with the right context.

  2. Reception took a phone message while I was in training, but the caller did not say which department she needed.

    In this example, the term refers to a passed-on record of a call, and missing details make follow-up harder.

Common collocations

  • leave a phone message
  • take a phone message
  • phone message pad
  • urgent phone message
  • take a messageTo write down information from a caller for someone who is not available, such as the caller's name, number and reason for calling.
  • voicemailA system that records phone messages when the person you call does not answer; also a message recorded in this way.

More terms: Phone Calls & Etiquette

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