I got a phone call today from a business in New York that wanted to use messages on hold to sound more professional and sell more to their customers on hold. They immediately asked about on hold equipment. It was pretty obvious they had been shopping around the internet for a good deal, because they asked questions that weren’t really going to help them achieve more of their goals. The questions were about thinks that companies that came up on Google had told them about.
How much is your on hold equipment?
The questions were about “how many words can be in the script?” “How many messages can we have?” and “How much is your on hold equipment?” The first and second questions are just the way some companies will charge you for recordings. It shows what they’re interested in. The third question is about selling you on hold equipment. We’ll come back to that one in a minute.
When I get a call about on hold messages, the most important questions I can ask are about your goals, your company, and your customers. The more I can learn about all three of these, the better. Then we can talk about a strategy for your messages on hold. Only when you know what you want to accomplish, and the best way to do it, can we start talking about your script. The “secret” to messages on hold isn’t a secret at all: it’s avoiding the generic script and the “customized script.” It’s a script written with your goals and your customers in mind.
The on hold equipment is just a tool for playing your messages
After we talked for a few moments, I learned that this Manhattan business had a VoIP phone system. They already had music playing on hold, but wanted something more interesting and professional sounding. But they didn’t even need the on hold equipment that someone had tried to seller: her VoIP phone system could play her messages.
On hold equipment is the least of your worries.
There are a few different on hold equipment choices. They’re all digital. Some are easier to load your messages onto than others. (That’s important to think about if your company and your marketing plan makes it important to change your messages throughout the year…let’s talk about that). But in the end, today’s generation of digital on hold equipment just keeps your messages sounding good. How well they do depends on how good the strategy and the script are.