It’s a great day and age. This economy has thrust many folks into changing their career, even starting their own business. The challenge is having your business sounding bigger than you actually are… larger than life. So how does one achieve this image while working out of their pickup truck from a cell phone or running their business barefoot in their boxer shorts from a bedroom in their home?

Many clients of OnHold123 by AudioMenu look to us to produce their custom greetings such as Voice Mail and Auto Attendant. So you can go from this, “Hey this is PJs cell phone, and I’m either drivin’ my truck with the windows open or up on a pole playin’ with 470 thousand volts of power, so please leave a message after the beep and I’ll call ya back” all the way to, “Thank you for choosing PJ Electrical Services. All of our representatives are currently assisting other callers. Please leave a detailed message, and we will return your call as soon as possible.”

So how do you get something like that with the voice and the music background loaded to your phone. We do it right from our studios.

If you want to take it a step further with a full menu of auto attendant greetings and on hold messages, this is really cool… it’s called RingCentral, and its designed for businesses as teeny tiny as the one that works from a cell phone all the way up to a huge conglomerate that doesn’t feel the need to spend money on expensive telephone equipment. We use it at OnHold123 and we love it.

It works like this… A customer calls your RingCentral number, a very professional auto attendant greeting answers the call (we will be happy to produce that greeting!) and you can have the call route to any phone or phones that you program it to. You can have your cell phone, house phone, office phone… all ring at the same time. If you don’t answer, it goes to your voice mail. You can even hit the “pound” key twice from the phone you answer on, and it will go into your On Hold Messages (That we of course can produce for you too!)

So even if your a pig farmer with a second job as a website designer and you work from a cell phone. You can sound bigger than the biggest website design company out there. Just be sure not to answer the phone when you’re surrounded by 16 loud and rather large pot-bellied pigs all fighting for your attention.

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Okay, so let me expand on that a little… If you do not have messages or music playing for customers on hold, throw each and every one of your phones in the dumpster! Go ahead… I’ll wait … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Now that you have a little more room on your desk- what… you didn’t really throw all your phones in the dumpster?

Here’s the deal. I’m not going to throw the On Hold statistics at you like “69.8465% of callers will hang up when hearing silence” or “callers listening to message on hold are 92.457% likely to wash their hands after using the restroom” or “a train traveling at 97 mph is more likely not to collide with a plane flying at 37 thousand feet as long as the train operator is not texting his mom about what she packed him for lunch”. Am I getting off course here?

The reason why your phones are useless with silence on hold is credibility. The credibility needed to ensure your callers that you have a handle on taking every step you can to market yourself on an equal or higher level than your competitor.

Just about every major company you call has licensed music and/or messages on hold. Messages are of course a greater advantage as it informs callers of their products, services and incentives. So why not market your company just as the majors do?

By the way, the reason why the large companies do NOT play the radio on hold is because it is illegal and their chances of getting caught are much higher because of their call volume… but that’s for another blog post.

When I hear silence on hold, I have to wonder if I am still connected.
When I hear messages on hold, the time goes by a little faster, I learn a bit more about the company, and I’m sometimes fairly entertained.
When I hear local radio on hold, especially when I’m calling a car dealership, I find it a bit ironic when a commercial on that radio station airs a competing car dealership. That’s it, let’s advertise our competitors on hold!

You have found your way to this blog by one means or another. Most likely you have some sort of interest in On Hold services. Or maybe your one of our competitors. Regardless, if you are playing silence for your callers on hold, kindly collect the phones in your office and toss them in the dumpster. You may lose a bit of income, but I promise your day will be much quieter. Oh, and if you are one of our competitors, i hope your blogs are compelling enough to get readers to the very last punctuation! “Exclamation Point”

Don’t get me wrong… I love my technology! But every so often, the latest technology can adversly affect how something else in the chain works.

As a key player in the on hold marketing industry, I have been battling with how the designers of digital phone systems did not properly incorporate on hold marketing options. For companies that like to utilize IP based phone systems or VOIP, the option of playing back on hold is certainly available, but there’s a catch. Each time a caller is placed on hold, they hear the custom program or music file from the beginning instead of jumping into the loop at a random spot in the program like that delivered from a professional on hold player. That means if you put the caller on hold once, twice, or even for a third time, they will hear that same message first every time. If they call in the next day and you place them on hold, they will again hear the same first message.

Until a programmer comes a long and develops a way to randomly access a point in an on hold file, you may be limited. If you have the option of using an on hold playback device that plays a continuous loop, take that option!

Customers who contact On Hold 123 with just the option of a file that plays from the beginning each time qualify for our 4 message program for just $199. We do not want to sell you an 8 message on hold package if your callers will never have an opportunity to hear the later portion of the program.