Stop losing money while your customers are on hold!

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How often does someone call into your business and, for one reason or another, get put on hold? It is a reality that this is a necessary part of everyday business. Whether it is a short wait while someone checks on an existing order, availability of an item or simply to wait until you finish the call you are currently taking, people do get left holding on. Now, the important question is...what do you want your customers to listen to while they are in that audio waiting room?

Let's consider the options.

First you could have them listen to silence, or "dead air." Doesn't sound very pleasant, does it? Often, when there is silence, people wind up wondering if they are still connected to your company or if they were just plain disconnected. Not good business.

Next, you could have them listening to a radio hooked into your phone system's on-hold "jack." Several concerns stem from this option. What kind of station are you going to tune into? We all like different kinds of music. So someone is bound to dislike or possibly be offended by your choice of station. When you do pick one...whose advertising is being played to YOUR customers? Fast food restaurants, the car dealership across town, or- worst of all...your COMPETITOR! Not prudent business. All the while there is the possibility that the station will "drift" and be playing static to your customers! Adding insult to injury, a company is bound by Federal Law to pay royalties to A.S.C.A.P. and B.M.I. annually for the privilege of this non-productive business decision.

Now, you could take charge of what your clientele will hear in those moments, however brief, of hold time. Turn your "hold" button into your own private radio station.

You could have a program of eight to ten different messages produced for your company , six minutes in length, informing your customers of all of the varied products and/or services available to them. You could then implement the program into your phone system, so that whether two or twenty people are on hold at any given time...they are all receiving information that they previously may not have been aware of.  All you supply is the music source, an auto-reverse tape player or "boom-box" plugged into your music-on-hold jack.

The notion of messages on hold is a proven goodwill gesture and cross-selling tool. Because it is more than likely the case that not even your best customer knows EVERY product and service that your company offers.

AT&T reports 7 out of 10 business calls are placed on hold. 85% of callers put on hold will keep listening if there’s a message as compared to the 88% of business traffic that will hang up when forced to hold. Of that 88%, 34% won’t call back.  Nearly 90% of callers prefer on hold messages to other options 16 to 20% of callers made a purchase based on an offer they heard while on hold.

A recently commissioned survey found the average business executive spends 60 hours/year on hold. If 100 callers are placed on hold each week for just 30 seconds each, a company would accumulate more than 43 hours of hold time in one year. With two on hold messages playing each minute, these callers would hear over 5,000 promotional messages about the business. Your on hold audience is some of your best prospects for new and repeat business…because they called you!

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