Music On Hold

Someone asked me recently how call centers decide what sort of on-hold music to play. For us, it’s been trial and error but I decided to do a little poking around to see if this has been researched. It has been and that this is a surprisingly loaded topic.

Some feel that on-hold music is a wasted marketing opportunity. Others have opted for actual on-hold entertainment, and a few have even developed ‘choose your own music’ options for their callers. If you have to choose just one, Science Daily reported that alternative music is the best crowd pleaser overall.

Perhaps most significantly, these studies show that callers on hold almost always overestimate how long they actually waited but most callers perceive their wait to be shorter when there is music (or something) playing.

The one thing everyone can agree on is that nobody likes dead air. Who knows? If you choose carefully you might actually have callers looking forward to holding.

Comments

[David Morse]

Jeff - Nice post. I always wondered about the effect of hold music on customers. Hopefully, I can add to the conversation...I made a list of the worst hold music on my blog ;-)

David

[On Hold Message]

My company recently implemented a customized on hold recording - I was totally against it at first, I mean what could be a bigger waste of money! But surprisingly, our clients have received it very well and they tend to stay on the line longer now - go figure!

[music on hold]

With a background music while on hold callers will have perception of not waiting too long.