The following article was written by Meridian friend Rees Evans. For the past 20 years, Rees and his company have been providing sales-boosting on hold messaging to companies nationwide. His company, Captive Audience, may be reached directly at 800.488.2550 or www.Captive-Audience.com.
When you push the hold button on your business phone system, you’re taking a risk. At the least, you risk angering your caller. At worst, you may have just lost a valued customer to a competitor. To reduce that risk and turn a negative experience into a positive one for callers, many companies have turned to message-on-hold companies to decrease hang ups and promote their company products. There are some good reasons.
According to an AT&T study, 7 out of 10 callers when placed on hold are left with silence. A full 55% of those will hang up within the first 40 seconds. Ninety percent of callers prefer messages on hold over silence. A full 16% of listeners make a decision to buy while listening to an on-hold message. Having on hold messages just makes good sense, but there are three areas you’ll need to address to get started.
The Phone System – Can your phones physically allow messages on hold? If you use a “business phone system” manufactured in the last 10 years, the answer is most likely yes. These systems are characterized by a “brain” mounted near where your phone lines come into your building. The “brain” (called a KSU) sorts the calls and sends them to extensions around the building.
Whether you have two extensions or 200, these systems all work the same way. The phone system feature that lets you put callers on hold with music and messages is called “MOH” or “Music On Hold”. If you already have a radio on hold, you’re home free, however, if you dial in a radio station, you are infringing on the copyrights of the music you’ve tuned in unless done through a message-on-hold company that can arrange to pay these fees for you.
If you simply plugged your phones into the wall, you can still have “MOH”, but the function must be provided by your message-on-hold vendor. There are several adapters on the market that may work, but make sure you test them before you buy, these units don’t work with all phones.
The Special Equipment – Your second consideration is the type of “music box” that will send the music and messages to your phone system. Your phone vendor or message-on-hold vendor will offer several manufacturers and types of systems. What most of these systems have in common is digital memory. With this memory, your program will repeat endlessly day and night with no moving parts, a vast improvement over the early days of endless-loop cassette tapes. If you’re currently using a CD player, you know that they intermittently stop and need replacement, a definite downside. The newer technology, called digital repeaters load from audio cassette, CD, flash memory chips, over a phone line and over the internet. The right model for you will be dictated by how often you update your messages.
The Message – This brings us to the third consideration, your message. What should you talk about? Your caller is interested in your products and services, they are already interested in you, but they may not know everything about you. One of our clients found instant success when they spoke about a product not featured in their print media. A caller placed an order on the spot. He had been ordering other products, plastics, for years, but didn’t know the client also carried tooling as the subject had never come up. On hold messages are a perfect forum to cross promote your products.
Messages should be very brief, five sentences or less. Callers want to hear the whole message, so just get them interested and they’ll ask for details when you come on the line. Above all, don’t talk wall to wall. You want your caller to relax. What is unique about what you do? You may think your callers know all about you, but on hold messages remind them about the small and unique differences that set you apart. The more competitive your market, the more important the small differences. This also means your supplier-provided messages defeat the purpose of promoting your special company.
Should you change messages occasionally? Absolutely. Even if your callers come to you infrequently, there will always be new developments they need to know about, and even changing the music will make their call more pleasant. Callers will remember what they hear, and if they hear the same thing on too many calls, they will end up disliking you.
You can use male and/or female voicing, but remember your announcer must speak with authority. In fact, your announcer is your most important choice. There’s a reason that some broadcast announcers can make millions per year and others make minimum wage. Pick an announcer that you immediately connect with and that gives you a warm, professional feeling about your business. If you like them, your callers will like them too. In the end, your callers will stay on hold longer, enjoy the experience, and buy more of what you sell.
