"Did I Get Disconnected?"

While you have a caller on the line waiting for your attention, you have an opportunity to not only make an impression on him about your company, but also promote your company’s products, services, and special promotions. With a creative on-hold message, you can educate, sell, entertain, or all three at the same time, resulting in lower frustration for your callers and better returns for your business.

Don’t be afraid of the technology or the unknown. The range of options and prices may surprise you. There are many equipment options available today for on-hold marketing and phone systems, including virtual on hold systems. The equipment prices at the low end allow even a home-based business to enjoy the benefits of on-hold marketing. With the technology available, every business, no matter the size or location, can use their on-hold time to their advantage.

So, what should you look for in a reputable, professional on-hold company?

1) An experienced on-hold messaging service provider should have a list of equipment options available for you to choose from and a knowledge about the benefits and drawbacks of each. Prices should be clear and up-front, with no hidden costs.

2) They should be able to either install the on-hold equipment for you, guide you through it, or arrange for it to be professionally installed.

3) You should have your choice of either male or female professional voice talent, with demos available of each.

4) The music a reputable on-hold marketing studio uses should be royalty-free, or the company should offer licensing as part of the price.

5) A professional on-hold message company will offer a choice of music styles. If you get lucky, you’ll find an on-hold company run by gifted musicians (like New England Multimedia) who custom-write original material for every on-hold message.

6) Scriptwriting should be part of the package. If you want to write your own on-hold message script to save money, be sure to read it out loud yourself and see how long your message is with breaks, or you may get caught in a frustrating cycle of emails back and forth with the company as they instruct you to cut, and then cut some more.

7) A professional on-hold marketing company should offer to contact you a couple of weeks before an update is due, to give you time to get your marketing materials together.

Did you know?: New England Multimedia started out exclusively as an on-hold marketing company called “Soundtrax Unlimited,” with little more than a 4-track recorder, keyboard, guitar, bass, and microphone. Scott literally picked up the Yellow Pages and began cold-calling every business in the book to offer our telephone on-hold message services; at one point, he was the voice of nearly every Auto Body Shop in Rhode Island! Back in those days, he’d hook up a standard CD player to a business’s phone system to get them up and running. Script-writing, voiceovers, and all-original music with quarterly updates kept them coming back, and that’s how we paid the bills while Scott built New England Multimedia into a multimedia business offering website development, on-hold marketing, video production and more.

Note: Because I want your comment to stand, please read our simple comment policy before replying! Thank-you!

Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.

You know the feeling. We’ve all been there.

You’ve got 5 minutes, and you just want a simple answer to a simple question — but as soon as the company you’ve called picks up the phone:

“Please hold.”

Silence.

You start listening for evidence that you’re actually on hold — that you haven’t been accidentally disconnected by an inept or inexperienced receptionist on the other end. Is that static you hear? A “room sound” of silence, or a dead connection? As the seconds pass and become minutes, your mood starts to noticeably sour.

"Good things come to those who wait, dear!"

You have things to do, doggone it. You look at the clock on your computer, glance at your calendar, poke around in your email.

Now you seriously wonder if you’ve been disconnected. And if you have, that means you’ve lost your place in line. You’ll have to call back, and some other guy has called in the meantime and HE’S on hold, and now you’re behind HIM.

You wonder if you should hang up and call back. But what if you’re still on hold? Then you’ll be giving up your place in line just becase you didn’t wait ONE MORE SECOND.

You hear your mother saying, “Good things come to those who wait,” and that just sours your mood even more. Now you have to choose whether to ignore your mother’s advice. But she’s a saint. You’re not. Maybe that’s why you’re so miserable.

Now your mood is REALLY sour. You look at the clock again. It’s time to go.

“Hello, thanks for waiting, can I help you?”

Did you know?: New England Multimedia started out as an on-hold marketing company called “Soundtrax Unlimited,” with little more than a 4-track recorder, keyboard, guitar, bass, and microphone. Scott literally picked up the Yellow Pages and began cold-calling every business in the book to offer our telephone on-hold message services; at one point, he was the voice of nearly every Auto Body Shop in Rhode Island! Back in those days, he’d hook up a standard CD player to a business’s phone system to get them up and running. Script-writing, voiceovers, and all-original music with quarterly updates kept them coming back, and that’s how we paid the bills while Scott built New England Multimedia into a multimedia business offering website development, on-hold marketing, video production and more.



Note: Because I want your comment to stand, please read our simple comment policy before replying! Thank-you!

Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.