Perception is a tricky beast. Just when you think you’ve understood something perfectly, another person will view the situation in a completely different way. And, on hold recordings are not exempted in this scenario.
One interesting example here is the “silence-on-hold” experience: This is when you are immediately put on-hold when you call a business. While the owner might think that this is just how a typical corporate phone system works, customers, on the other hand, might feel like they’re disconnected. Worse? Callers might interpret the silence as you not being interested with them, thus resulting in caller abandonment (hang-ups) which according to on hold stats can cause a loss of 60% of potential revenues in a business.
This situation also holds true with canned on hold music. Canned telephone on-hold music, are generic on-hold recordings that are requested by some establishments thinking that they can solve the problem of callers having to wait for a few minutes.
However, instead of solving, they have worsen the situation. Business owners think that with a canned on-hold message, they can alleviate the waiting time of callers by just simply playing the recording without any plans of updating or changing the music on-hold.
With that, customers feel more frustrated which can result to more hang-ups. Replacing silence with a canned on-hold message can be more disastrous than silence! The sad thing is that companies are implying that canned messages on-hold can just sit there, never to be updated or enhanced until the end of time.
Remember that your customers are judging and formulating different opinions about your business during those couple of minutes on-hold. So, you need to see to it that you have made the right impression during those moments when you have your caller’s full attention. It should more informative, more timely, and more accurate as your brand progresses.
Canned on-hold messages do the opposite and ruin what is supposed-to-be a good customer experience. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes: Would you like to hear something that sounds like a broken record with poorly crafted on-hold message, with bad music, bad timing, and irrelevant content? I don’t think so.
I bet you’ve been put on-hold several times. How do you feel when you hear something informative and at the same time relevant? It’s the best on-hold experience, isn’t it? Give that kind of satisfaction to your customers, too! Don’t simply use a band-aid and settle for less.