Using Hosted and VOIP systems with Music on hold
~ This was posted on - April 9, 2009
We increasingly see more customers coming to us with VOIP technology running their phone systems. The VOIP application uses a remotely hosted phone server, with service delivered via the customers internet connection. While our experience has been that this technology is still maturing and not as reliable as a traditional business-class phone system, the music on hold technology that runs it is very stable and straightforward. However, the music on hold marketing technique in VOIP is different in one big way: It does not loop.
When a customer is put on hold in a VOIP/ hosted system the music on hold feed starts at 00:00seconds, and plays until whenever the call is picked up on other end.
[start] Paragraph #1 / music / Paragraph#2 / music / Paragraph #3 / … etc.
In a traditional phone system, the music on hold plays through an external player (usually) that loops about endlessly in a four to six minute track. You never know what paragraphs that are full of information and style about your company are going to be playing. It’s like a home system CD track on “repeat”.
[start?] Paragraph #1 / [start?] music / [start?] Paragraph #2 / [start?] ….
For VOIP/ hosted systems, having the messaging on hold track start at Paragraph #1 every time they call is a mixed blessing.
1. GOOD – Your business can get it’s top priority marketing paragraphs out first to every caller. Lesser priority paragraphs can be placed later in the 4 to six minute production.
2. BAD – If a prospect or customer calls in more than once, they’ll get tired of hearing the same Paragraph #1 all the time.
At www.holdtimestudios.com, we recommend having smaller productions for VOIP / hosted systems, and changing them more often. This makes the music on hold marketing channel much more relevant and dynamic, and doesn’t significantly increase the cost because the overall production and studio is shorter for each paragraph. To us, (4) six-minute productions is the same amount of studio time as (6) three-minute productions.