What is the #1 thing people don’t want to hear on-hold?

- An out-of-tune radio.

What is the #1 thing business owners don’t want customers to hear on-hold?

- A radio advertisement for somebody else.

What is the biggest waste of space on a phone system?

- Silence, while your customers are listening for someone to help them.

What is the second biggest waste of space on a phone system?

- Music-on-hold with lots of distortion guitar (which sounds awful over the phone), and badly written scripts.

What is the most overused, oxymoronic phrase for messages on hold?

- “Your call is important to us.”

o While that may true, don’t remind the caller of it then fill their ear with bad music-on-hold. The best compliment we routinely get at www.holdtimestudios.com is, “Our customers ask to get put back on-hold!” I’m not kidding – read our testimonials!

What’s the most inappropriate music on hold selection we’ve heard?

- Mozart’s Requiem, for a life insurance company!

Honestly, folks…. You can do better with www.holdtimestudios.com. Please read our testimonials and see the music on hold can be fun, engaging, and present your company in a way that will

- callers on hold longer

- help your customers understand the scope and background of your business

- cross-sell products and services your customers are not aware of

- create an marketing impression where there was once was…silence!

Many businesses spend thousands of dollars to make their front office look nice, but the majority of their business is done over the phone. Fortunately, creating a smooth professional experience for callers using voiceovers and marketing on-hold is easy, and less expensive than the furniture in your lobby! Eliminiate dead space, and “harmonize” your phone system by focusing on these four zones:

1. Part 1 – Auto-Attendants, see our blog here.
   
   
2. Part 2 – Marketing on-hold.

If you’ve spent thousands of dollars to purchase a commercial-grade (PBX) phone system, then most of your callers will be put on-hold or transferred during their call. It’s time to deploy your marketing strategy, and tell them why they made the right call when they called you!

It’s important to use the same voice for the on-hold marketing and your auto-attendant, otherwise it sounds like you’ve switched phone systems and your call is heading overseas. Not professional.

We’ve already said quite a bit on the details of this production. You can read about it here:

Content, including website promotion, and services see our blog here.

Equipment, see our blog here.

Music styles, see our blog here.

This dynamic market music on hold channel will tell your customers all about your business for a fraction it would cost to create a print and broadcast medium advertisement, at least it’s less expensive if you use www.holdtimestudios.com. Your callers will also refrain from hanging up now that they have something interesting about YOU to listen to with messaging on hold.

This blog continues to Part 3 here, with a discussion about Directory and Voice Mail recordings.

When the economy is down, it’s time to circle the wagons in your marketing budget, and work on your best prospects – your existing customers. The same ones that call your business and are put on-hold while they’re waiting for you… If you’re short on marketing cash, delay that radio campaign that indiscriminately advertises to an unknown audience for $12-$30k. Use a message on hold system for as little as $10 a month, or a few hundred dollars per piece!  Check prices at www.holdtimestudios.com here:  http://www.holdtimestudios.com/store/

All mass media advertising channels have the same problem:

- outdoor advertising

- Radio

- Newspaper

- Phone book

- Direct Mail

…you’re paying big dollars, and not sure who it’s going to. A smarter use of your marketing budget (for far less), is targeting an audio marketing piece to people who have already initiated contact with your businesses.

If you’re already spending money on media, then why would you not put your best foot forward when they call you. Roll out the red carpet for your phone system, and use an on-hold messaging system for less than it takes for the radio ad to be produced!

We’ve all heard them… and here’s what makes an on-hold production more annoying than helpful.

1. Paragraphs are too long… If your average caller is on-hold for 20 seconds, then why write paragraphs that take 30 seconds to read through? They’ll never hear the beginning and/or the end.
   1. Solution: Keep you paragraphs to 20 seconds or less.
2. Poor music choice… Let’s say you’re a finanicial planner, and use hard rock. Yet, most of your clientel doesn’t like hard rock. Your on-hold will do more harm than good.
   1. Solution: Aim for the lowest common denominator, usually light jazz.
3. Too much generic information… As in, “ABC company has provided the best customer service in our industry for since 1980.” Oh, please… you do more harm than good with that dreary pablum.
   1. Solution: Work industry statistics into good stories about your company. What do you tell people who want to know a little more about your company – this is your chance?
4. Micro-managing professional writers… To be honest, business owners who insist on writing their own on-hold messaging even when the service is part of the package are shooting themselves in the foot. Hold Time Studios will take the time to interview you, listen to your what your company is about, then use our experienced creative writers to come up with a script that will hit the target!
   1. Solution: Let the professionals do what they’re good at. You’ll always get the opportunity to approve it.
5. Use outdated information… Callers will immediately recognize if you’re advertising an event on hold that happened in the past.
   1. Solution: Change the production more frequently.

Get it right at www.holdtimemusic.com, or www.holdtimestudios.com!

Some on-hold companies make their money by not providing all the productions you’ve paid for. Let’s say our client www.greshamchryslerjeep.com has paid for four productions in a calendar year – that’s pretty standard. Our sister company, www.holdtimemusic.com makes sure they get what they paid for by setting up a flexible calendar schedule for new productions and

1. Writing new script before we contact them at the beginning of a season.
2. Requesting their input and approval before new productions are made.
3. Following up with the client by phone and email prior to each production period.

What do some of our competitors do?

1. Wait for the client to call.

Yup, that’s it. So it’s up to Gresham Chrysler Jeep to request a new production, and by the end of the year only two have been delivered instead of the four they paid for. The client gets ½ of customer service, and the on-hold messaging company gets 50% profit.

At Hold Time Studios and www.holdtimemusic.com, we’re serious about keeping the promises we make. It’s our owner, Patrick Bolan, who will give us hell if we don’t!

A recent sales call to a small chocolatier (www.jacivas.com) illustrated two common complaints with music on hold companies; 1) Long term contracts, 2) Poor customers service. The innoviative marketing solution of onhold messaging should not be difficult…. Here are some pitfalls to avoid.

Long Term contracts:

Watch out Muzak subscribers – the standard is a five year contract with payment-in-full if you attempt to cancel it. Earglue – a three year contract. (Maybe this is why they just came out of bankruptcy and were recently purchased by a Canadian company.) You’ll have to sign these before any messaging on-hold equipment is installed… I mean, you won’t even know if you like it or not, and boom: five years. Oh, and it’s automatically renewing unless you inform them in writing a few months before your current contract expires.

Solution: We’ve designed Hold Time Studios to be an easy way to update your phone system with marketing ideas that work! When a contract is necessary, Hold Time Studios only does one-year subscriptions, with the option to renew. There is a cost to this. We don’t want to provide $700 in equipment, then have the customer cancel after a one year subscription – that’s a loss for us. In exchange a flexible subscription options, we may charge a modest set-up fee, or request that you purchase the messaging-on-hold playback equipment.

Hold Time Studios also provides a single buyout production, and equipment for purchase for an unchanging production. Most customers who use this option will return within a year to purchase another production.

We’ll take a look at the #2 complain in our next posting!

Having written thousands of pages of on-hold-messaging script for Hold Time Studios, we’ve got a good feel of what works… and what doesn’t. New script writers will load up the paragraphs with superlatives and adjectives – Wrong! Here’s a badly written on-hold paragraph:

“Hecht and Hecht Insurance Agency (www.hechtinsur.com) represents a host of professionally well rated insurance options for your personal or business and automobile coverage. Let us improve your coverage and service by reviewing your policy today.”

That is awful. In fact, if you’re going to use such bad script you might as well just have music…. Nobody listens to that! Here’s a better way:

“Hecht and Hecht recently replaced an insurance carrier for a large company in Bellingham with 750 employees. The next year, they saved $1.5 million in insurance premiums – without reducing coverage. This isn’t pixie dust math – it’s providing companies with employee education and wellness programs that reduce claims. We’d be happy to pass the savings on to you when we return to the line.”

Much better! A real story, hard statistics, and a little levity give a contemporary example of what Hecht and Hecht wants every customer and prospect to know. It takes a little more time, but engaging the caller with well written script turns “silence” into a viable and inexpensive message on hold.

For a good video primer on on-hold messaging see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cmOUgjaCXY

Hold Time Music and Marketing started as an idea in a business research class, and then – armed with a graduate degree in Music and an M.B.A., we’ve found our way into hundreds of phone systems around the country – almost exclusively by referrals. We’re very proud of our company, and grateful for our clients.