What Is Creative On Hold?

Drip…drip…drip…you need to find a handyman—and fast. You google who the best in town is and you’re given a list of reputable results. You call the first one that looks decent, curious about their pricing. Ring…ring…ring…you’re put on hold. Two scenarios can happen. One: You get a live stream of jazz music with the message “Thank you for holding, your call matters to us” interrupting the static-filled saxophone every 30 seconds. You hang up and call the next company after a couple minutes. Or two: You’re entertained by their creative on hold, featuring a story of how the founder picked up his first hammer at the age of 5 and dropped it on his grandpa’s toe. You’re entertained by the characters of the story,  you have a few laughs, and suddenly…someone answers the phone. Right as you were getting to the good part of the story! Darn it.   Studies show businesses have about 45 seconds to convince someone to stay on hold, and elevator music isn’t cutting it anymore. So what do you do? At Push Button Productions we can explore your options with creative on hold.

Tell Your Brand Story

Use creative on hold to discuss how your company was born. Is there a funny or charming story behind the logo design? What interested you into starting the business? Is it family owned? How did you find your passion? What are your credentials, who is part of your team, what is your mission statement? This is a great time to discuss those topics with the consumer one on one and humanize your brand.

Give Product Information

The consumer is calling because they are interested in your services. What all do you offer? Are there any specials or promotions you’re offering? Why are your services superior to your competitor’s? Give them a reason to stay on the line with you instead of calling someone else with the help of creative on hold.

Entertain the Audience

This is where it gets interesting. Not for the faint of heart, this option is definitely the most fun – at least for us anyways. You can create wacky characters, tell exaggerated stories, sing goofy songs, and basically do whatever you want – the air waves are the limit. It is “creative on hold”…you might as well get creative with it.

Testimonials

Gather up your biggest fans and we’ll throw them in the recording studio. Guided by a couple of questions and some on brand conversation, we’ll squeeze out some useful soundbites for a creative on hold that boasts the strongest qualities of your company – and convinces the consumer to stay on the line.

 

 

Happy On Hold

Why do companies advertise? According to a recent study, 93% of the average marketing/advertising budget is spent to entice potential customers to call. The mindset is this: consumer is interested, consumer calls, salesperson answers, and salesperson sells. Unfortunately this simplistic view ignores a critical step; the consumer goes on hold.

Now consider this: 70% of all business callers are placed on-hold at some point in this critical interaction with a company. So before your sales team ever gets to speak with a potential customer, the caller has been introduced to the company via on-hold messaging. This messaging is critical in three ways: retention, information and branding.

On-hold messaging is used to keep callers on the line. In fact, callers stay on the line 25% longer when listening to on-hold messaging vs. silence or background music. That additional time could be the difference between making a sale and losing a customer permanently. The same study indicates that one out of every three people who hang up while on hold never call back.

It’s obviously important to retain customers, but high quality on-hold messaging not only keeps the caller’s attention but also informs them. On-hold messaging can deliver product information directly to the ear of the consumer. It seems counterintuitive, but most consumers actually prefer to hear product information as opposed to other hold options. By mentioning a product in on-hold messaging, businesses experience a 20% increase in requests for additional information regarding that product. Clearly, consumers want to be informed and on-hold messaging is an ideal outlet for the information.

Certainly, on-hold messaging improves the quality of consumer phone calls, but it can have much greater consequence. To the first time caller, on-hold messaging is their introduction to the brand. It is a golden opportunity to demonstrate a company’s humorous side or commitment to high quality. Whatever the brand, on-hold messaging can effectively differentiate it from the competition.

On-hold messaging is more than a simple suggestion; it is vital to creating customers out of callers.

 

Can Better On-Hold Increase Sales?

There are certain inevitabilities in life: traffic, taxes, and spending an obnoxiously long period of time on hold. So inevitable, in fact, that you’ll spend an unbelievable 1.2 years of your life waiting to reach an actual customer representative. That’s more time than we spend going to the bathroom throughout our lives. The right on-hold content can take those 1.2 years from intolerable to even – gasp! – enjoyable, but can killer on-hold really increase sales?

The true value of an on-hold message lies in one thing: customer retention. If the customer on the other end has hung up, it doesn’t matter what wonderful content they’re missing in the message you worked so hard on. So, let’s look at what kind of content will actually keep potential customers from putting down the phone. USA Business Telephone Today conducted a study to find out just that. They split 30,000 people into three groups of callers and put them on hold. One group listened to dead silence, another listened to music, and the third listened to information placed over the hold music. The results speak for themselves: 52% of participants in the group met with silence on-hold hung up within a minute. 13% of the music listeners did the same.

The group receiving both music and verbal information had only a 2% hang-up rate. Think about those statistics in terms of your customers and reach. Could you afford to lose half of your callers within just 60 seconds? If you’re answering your callers with a whole lotta nothin, you could nearly double your retention rate by replacing that awkward, bereft-of-brain-activity on-hold response.

If you’re just playing music during the hold period, consider seeking out new on-hold content, complete with some actual human voices to reduce the rising boredom of your waiting callers. Adding a verbal message on top of the music cut customers’ hang-up rate by 83 percent! Going the extra creative mile truly pays off in customer retention—and sales.

The thought of being on hold might not fill customers with excitement, but crafting the right message for them to hear while they wait can make a whole 1.2 years of their lives a lot more pleasant. It’s a win-win: they enjoy themselves, they stay on the line, and you reap the benefits.

Interested in spicing up your on-hold creative? Give us a call and we’ll help keep your callers HOOKED. Visit our website or call 888-494-PUSH