Hello Can You Hear ME?
Hello are you there? On-Hold Messages Importance is vital to a companies brand, customer service and bottom line. Verizon does not have the market on “Hello Can Your Hear Me Now” When you use a cell phone today we are always wondering if the call dropped when we hear nothing. If we hear music and someone does not come back right away we wonder if they forgot about us…Right? Can we completely avoid placing people on hold? Not if you have a thriving business with more than one person.
Placing someone on hold is a very important part of conducting business over the phone. Sometimes you’ve got to check something, transfer a customer to a colleague or even let the answering machine pick up the call (because you’re off playing golf with a ‘potential client’).
Putting people on hold is unavoidable. A caller having a horrible time on hold, however, is very, very avoidable. Across the globe, more and more companies are becoming aware of just how important their on hold system is and how untapped its marketing potential remains.
Hello are you there? On-Hold Messages Importance
A recent survey conducted came up with some pretty interesting stats. Over 50% of customers on hold feel “more valued” by a business when they’re treated to customized audio messages and music. Generic and repetitive on hold audio actively drives away customers.
And less than 1% of businesses have a personalized voicemail service for when their phones are unattended. A whopping 82% have a generic, boring voicemail and 17% don’t have anything at all.
“Hello? Are you there? This is a potential customer calling!”
Many businesses play messages, music or a mixture of both for callers who are waiting to speak to a live person. An on-hold message is a speaking recording that lets the caller know she’s still connected. A business may mix multiple messages or repeat the same set during a call, depending on its phone system message settings.
Call Retention
On-hold messages help keep callers waiting on the line. A CNN survey’s findings show that 70 percent of callers who are on hold in silence hang up within 60 seconds; of them, 35 percent won’t call back. Some callers hearing nothing think they were hung up on, while others become more frustrated by the wait. A North American Telecommunications Association study found that callers who had information to listen to remained on hold up to three minutes longer.
Marketing Opportunity
On-hold messages allow a company to market to the caller while keeping her on the line. A phone company can use the Auto Attendant message or the on-hold messaging to tell customers about a new service or feature; when the caller reaches a live person, she has an immediate opportunity to ask about a feature mentioned in the message. On-hold messaging also allows a business to connect a caller with information about and access to ordering a product or service immediately, increasing the chances the caller will buy it. Essentially, it’s free marketing with little additional cost to the business and instant listeners.
Information Relay
A business can use on-hold messages to reduce call volume. Messaging that answers a common question or provides information about an unusual occurrence help reduce the number of calls that must be fielded by live reps. For example, a utility company can use on-hold messaging to explain a service outage in a particular area and provide an estimated time for service restoration. Callers who called to report the outage often hang up after hearing the message, as they don’t need to speak to a live person anymore.
Considerations
On-hold messages must be well-crafted and timed correctly to achieve the desired results. Customers calling a billing problem phone number, for example, might be upset already, and an on-hold message strongly pushing online support can make matters worse. The message content also should vary. If customers experience a five-minute wait on average, for example, one minute worth of message content that repeats isn’t sufficient; callers will hear the same thing five times before they speak to a person. At On-Hold Systems we work to maximize your message space and your customers experience with a 5 minute message.