Music On Hold: All You Need To Know

Have you ever contacted a business and waited in the queue before being connected to an agent? It gets quite boring when you just sit there waiting, isn’t it?

But when there is some music, the hold doesn’t feel as much of a wait as it would be without one.

As we listen to that music, we relate it to something we have heard before, and that makes passing the time a bit easier.

This is the whole psychological concept behind the Music On Hold Feature! To engage the customers in something before they get connected to an agent.

How Does Music on Hold Work?

With a traditional phone system, providing music on hold to the customers was a tiring process.

The telephony system needed to be connected with a playback device, like a CD player, that played recorded music or message which needed to be activated manually when the customer was put on the queue.

But that is not the case today, and music on hold isn’t as rare either. With the introduction of Hosted PBX, it is very easy to provide music on hold by taking advantage of cloud technology.

You get this feature with most cloud-hosted phone systems today.
Let’s get into more detail why Music on Hold can be an essential feature for your business.

1. Customer Retention

The main reason why music on hold is implemented is to avoid losing a customer. Every call is valuable to an organisation, whether it’s a small business or a large enterprise, as every lead counts.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a new customer or an old one, if they feel that the agent is taking too long to answer, and are being careless about the people in the queue, they will probably switch to other service providers.

While with music on hold, a drastic increase in customer’s waiting time is observed.

There can even be a recorded message to relay information to the customer while they are waiting, to provide them with more value when the customer is being connected to an agent.

2. Different Message For Different Department

The customisation of music on hold feature doesn’t stop at just playing a snippet of particular music or message.

But in fact, you can select multiple music tracks or voice messages to be played for the waiting queue of different departments.

You can even customise the message or music for new and frequent customers, or for some VIP customers to make them feel special.

This provides your customers with greater satisfaction, enhancing their overall experience with your business.

3. Provide Valuable Information

With Music on hold, you can provide your customers with a lot of information saving both, the customer and your business time. And you can keep on changing messages as per your current situation without any hassle from your end.

You can provide basic information like the location or directions to your office, or answer some frequently asked questions about your business or product.

You can even endorse a new product while the customer is waiting to be connected to an agent, which might intrigue him to enquire about the new product or service, or even buy it.

4. Enhance Your Professional Image

Let’s be truthful here, whenever we hear a snippet of music or an informative message while waiting in the queue, we instantly associate it with a large organisation.

This is extremely useful for new businesses that are just starting out and building a name for their company. Even for larger organisations, it is essential to maintain its brand image for their customers.

This also helps in building a trust factor with the customers. customers tend to trust an established brand which has a name for itself in the market.

With music on hold implemented, you can easily enhance your brand image and build stronger bonds with your customers.

What You Should Know Before Implementing Music On Hold

The very first thing you should keep in mind while implementing music on hold feature for your business communication channel is not to use any copyrighted music.

Using music owned by any other company can cause serious trouble for your business.

It can not only cost you a huge amount of money, but might even take you to the legal processes, and that is not what any business owner would like.

Above all, it can shatter your business’ reputation completely and affect the reliability among your customers.

Thus, it is important to purchase a license of the music you are going for play to your customers.

Simply buying it on Amazon or iTunes won’t work either, as playing it as a hold music will be considered rebroadcasting, which is illegal. Purchase the music from the creators or the people who hold the license to that particular music.

You can even create your own music by hiring professional people online. Another way is to play royalty free music which is also available.

In A Nutshell

Music on Hold is an amazing feature for businesses to improve their interactions with customers. If used in the right, and legal manner, it brings a lot of benefits to the organisation.

For any business, retaining their customers is crucial, and with music on hold, they can significantly enhance their customer experience resulting in the customers staying connected for a longer duration of time.

Moreover, it also increases your reputation among your customers, and they are more likely to recommend you to others, giving your marketing strategy a free-of-cost boost.

Other than playing music on hold, you can record an informative voice message and play it so that the customers get to know about your business, from new services and products, to how to reach your office.

Acefone provides music on hold feature without any additional cost with a Hosted Phone System. You can connect to an expert today to get your business the boost it needs at 1888-859-0450.

Ratnam Sinha

Ratnam is an SEO enthusiast and content writer working as a Digital Marketer with Acefone. He is fond of traveling and new experiences. He is a huge Marvel fan and is always open to learning.