Music on hold, popularly abbreviated as MOH, is a business practice whereby music is played on a music on hold player while the caller waits to be served. Common sources of telephone on hold music are the stock MOH CDs (with or without periodic voice-overs such as ‘please stay on the line’), custom-designed MOH (with or without periodic voice-overs), radio, off-the-shelf commercial CDs, and online on hold. Your business will benefit a great deal from music for hold.
According to recent AT&T research, as much as 70% of calls are placed on hold for over 30 seconds. Instances where the callers were on ‘silent hold’ led to call abandonment rates of about 75%. 80% of these callers hang up within 1 minute. The same study showed that callers with music for hold stayed on the line for up to 5 minutes longer. You should therefore, strive to keep customers/clients on the line for as long as possible and this is achievable through a message on hold player.
The same AT&T research showed that 30% of callers bought additional products/services based on what they heard while on hold and 25% of callers made purchases based on sales suggestions while on hold. A recent CNN survey showed that 90% of callers preferred on hold messages over silence. You should therefore, take advantage of this opportunity to turn the music on hold into an advertising tool. You will get greater ROI (return on investment) with MOH.
Your business benefits from telephone on hold music because most of these callers never called back. The CNN survey showed that 35% of those who drop the line never call back. MOH guarantees that you get customer loyalty. The people who hung up do so because of boredom or frustration and periodic voice-overs such as ‘your call is important to us’ and ‘someone will be with you shortly’ keeps them on the line.
MOH is advantageous in that it complements other advertising methods like branding. The voice-overs will be professionally written and recorded, and incorporate promotion of your company, the products/services it sells, and your website and its features in the telephone on hold music. You could also motivate your customers to take action since a call to action makes a great difference in a sale. You could talk about the strengths of the company and your speciality. A music on hold player handles different sources of music, meaning you will not have unwanted clutter. A music on hold player can be handled by just one person.
