What Message Are You Sending On Hold

By Guest Writer, Sonya Winterbotham

Silence might be golden… but it doesn’t make you money.  And neither does that awful tubular bells music courtesy of the phone company.

When you hit the “hold” button on your customers, don’t put the sale “on hold”.  Skip the silent treatment and give your customers something to think about - feed them with information.  But keep in mind, an on hold is essentially advertising and there’s a right and wrong way to do it.

First things first… unless you work for a bank or phone company, you’re on hold shouldn’t run any longer than two minutes… in fact one minute should be enough.  Why?  Heck how long are you planning on keeping your customers on hold for?

Maybe that’s something to research first… what’s the average amount of time your customers spend on hold?  If it’s longer than two minutes, I’d be trying to shorten that first, before working on the message.

Make your messages clear and succinct.  This is a situation where you need to keep it simple.  An on hold message isn’t the channel for getting in depth or explaining something complicated.  Remember your customers shouldn’t be on hold for long… So you need to present short, sharp messages… My suggestion – Just five to ten seconds per thought.  If you tease their intrigue – they can ask you for more detail when they come off hold.

But what should your on hold say?  This is where a little bit of customer knowledge or research comes into it.  What’s the primary reason for most of your customer calls?  Now… what’s the up-sell?  That’s your first key message.  

My mechanic knows most of his customers call to book in for a regular service… So his on hold is full of short snippets of all the other regular automotive repairs and services they offer… Simple messages work.  Within 30 seconds… I was upsold from a service, to a service with a wheel alignment.  

You can also use your on hold to tell customers about new developments or to answer frequently asked questions… But always make sure you’re telling them something of  benefit, something to make their primary reason for calling easier.

And just one more piece of advice – don’t repeat your business name every ten seconds – After all your customer called you - they already know who you are.

Remember - the one thing better than the sound of silence is the sound of an on hold ringing up the cash register.