Turn Silence into Sales!
Have you ever called a company only to hang up in frustration because, instead of getting to talk to someone, you’re subjected to minutes of irritating beeps, uninterrupted tinny muzak, or worse – complete silence, wondering if you’ve been cut off?
If this sounds like YOUR business phone system, how many prospective customers could you be losing to your competitors simply by not keeping their interest whilst they’re put on hold? If you’re going to reduce caller abandonment and possibly gain more business from the people who call you, you need to do two things:
• Let them speak to a real, live person as quickly as possible.
• Make the time they spend on hold as useful and engaging as you can.
The first isn’t always easy. You can only employ a certain number of telephone staff, and there are going to be busy periods when they have to deal with a substantial backlog of calls. It’s in the second area – giving your callers something interesting to listen to and focus on while they wait – that you have the power to make a difference.
You’ll find that relevant, interesting and informative on-hold messages are really effective at keeping callers on the line by minimising their perception of waiting time. As well as giving callers something relevant to listen to, it reassures them that you value their enquiry and will keep their wait to a minimum.
Statistics show that an effective on-hold message recording results in a 45% increase in caller retention – in other words, far fewer callers getting frustrated and hanging up. According to research published in Teleconnect magazine, 88% of callers preferred to listen to an on-hold message rather than background music alone, and 16-20% of callers made a purchasing decision based on the recorded information they heard while on hold. When you look at it this way, the time you have your callers on hold becomes an opportunity rather than an inconvenience. You don’t want to make it any longer than necessary, but you can make the most of it.
Effective on-hold messages
So if you’re writing and recording on-hold messages for your phone system, what strategies should you have in mind?
• Short, clear messages work best. It’s not a good idea to give your listeners a very long message to listen to, for a couple of reasons. First, you might not keep their full attention – a clear and crisp message is more likely to sink in than a long, rambling one. Second, if they are listening to a long message they might think that they have to listen to the whole thing before they actually get to talk to somebody, which can add to their uncertainty and frustration.
• A better tactic is to intersperse short, useful messages with sections of music. Alternating ten second bursts of music with fifteen second recorded messages works well. A strategy like this gives your customers useful information and/or a sales message as well as the clear impression that they are in line for someone to take their call.
• Reassurance is good: as well as telling waiting callers about your products, services and special offers, remind them that their call will be answered soon and – most importantly – that their business really does matter to you.
• You can also use an on-hold message to reduce the burden on your phone system by suggesting to customers that they visit your website.
• When choosing the background music make sure you choose a soundtrack that suits your main audience. You might be a huge fan of thrash metal, but if your business is targeting the over-60 age group it’s unlikely to go down very well with the majority of callers.
• On the subject of music, watch out for licensing fees! If you want to use most popular music tracks for your on-hold message recording, you’ll need to get permission from the copyright holder and pay a substantial fee. However, excellent quality royalty free music tracks are readily available at a fraction of the cost.
Finally, remember that quality counts. You want to promote your business as a professional enterprise, so it’s really important that your on-hold messages are recorded in a clear, professional way. It’s always best to use a commercial voice over production studio that has a good track record in this specialist field.
Clocktower Creative voice over studios have more than a decade of expertise in producing high quality on-hold recordings for a wide range of businesses, and can also advise on issues such as music licensing and effective scriptwriting. Why not get in touch with the team at Clocktower to find out how they can maximise your on-hold marketing potential!
For more information and contact details go to clocktowercreative.co.uk
Interesting and helpful info. I would add that there are different genres of on-hold music, each sending out a different message to the client waiting on the phone. As in most aspects of corporate marketing, especially as a service provider, serving many clients, it is recommended to first write down what mood or vibe you would like your clients to receive while waiting for your representative. There are many options, many music composers and custom music options, but you have to initially define what yuo’re looking for.