To some, it may just be that little box attached to your phone system, but to the more "nuanced", their on-hold player holds music, messages, and a one-of-a-kind tool for communicating with customers. The question is, are you communicating with your customers on-hold?
Here are three things to think about with regard to your on-hold messaging:
1. Don't assume you are automatically "communicating" with your customers on hold, just by having an on-hold system.
2. Ask yourself what you are communicating.
3. Think "dialogue" rather than "monologue" (conceptually, at least).
Too many businesses, I fear, use their on-hold loop as essentially a baby-sitter, that is, more or less the telecom equivalent of their office lobby. I.e., it's a place to dump customers until you can get to them. Among other things, one problem with this approach is it shows or at least implies disrespect for customers - a backwards attitude which seems to say that you are doing them a favor by giving them the privilege of doing business with you. If that is your thinking, may I suggest that you consider the wise words of Hobbes, Calvin's sage companion in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, who once remarked, "One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water."
Your customers are not children, nor are they "profit units". What do your customers hear while in your on-hold loop? Too often, it's something like "Your call is important to us, and will be answered in the order in which it was received" For the record, one call does not an "order" make. Apart from what may be seen by some as grammatical trivialities, the answer to the question of how well you communicate with your customers while they are on hold depends on how we define "communication". Despite living in the "information age", with its steady stream of "new and improved" communications technologies, it seems that, as a society, we are drifting away from true communication. The reasons for this are complex, but I'd like to at least encourage awareness of this trend and, hopefully, inspire some conscious resistance to it among businesses who seek to prosper through really communicating with, connecting with, and serving their customers.
In a required "Principles of Mass Communication" lecture class in college I once stood to my feet and challenged what I felt was the professor's overly simplistic definition of "communication", which was, "the transmission of a message from a sender ("A") to a receiver ("B"). This definition was illustrated by a simple line drawing of two squares labeled "A" and "B", respectively, with an arrow (the "message") in between the two squares, and pointing at "B". While such a spare illustration may serve for purely utilitarian purposes, when it comes to the message itself - and the reason "A" is sending it in the first place - I believe a broader perspective merits consideration. Simply put, if "B" has little or no idea of what "A" is actually trying to say - i.e. "A"s intended message, I, for one, don't think "A" has truly communicated with "B". In such instances the arrow in the middle might just as well be labeled "noise". My professor told me I had a good point to which he would later return. I sat back down at my desk, and waited.
Call it nitpicking, but I would suggest that communication involves more than merely sending a message. True communication, as I see it, does not happen until the intended audience not only receives but also understands the message, at least to some minimal extent. Granted, from a purely technical standpoint, the distinction is merely semantic, and my prof was perfectly correct in his definition. Rather than quibbling over semantics, however, perhaps, with regard to communicating with your customers on hold, the smartest thing would be to talk to them and find out what their experience is in your on-hold loop. They could be a source of constructive feedback and help you communicate more effectively, provide a higher level of service, and, potentially, improve your bottom line. Having an actual conversation with them while they are on hold would obviously be, by definition, unfeasible, but if you have an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude with regard to your on-hold loop, you might not be making the best use of this resource.
Holdtime Studios must be doing something right, as their clients' customers have actually been known to request that they be put back on hold so they can hear the rest of the on-hold message. As for defining "communication" an alternative to my college professor's definition which is also simple, but I think, for current purposes, rather more serviceable, is the word "connection".
By the way, my professor never did return to my point.
Here are three things to think about with regard to your on-hold messaging:
1. Don't assume you are automatically "communicating" with your customers on hold, just by having an on-hold system.
2. Ask yourself what you are communicating.
3. Think "dialogue" rather than "monologue" (conceptually, at least).
Too many businesses, I fear, use their on-hold loop as essentially a baby-sitter, that is, more or less the telecom equivalent of their office lobby. I.e., it's a place to dump customers until you can get to them. Among other things, one problem with this approach is it shows or at least implies disrespect for customers - a backwards attitude which seems to say that you are doing them a favor by giving them the privilege of doing business with you. If that is your thinking, may I suggest that you consider the wise words of Hobbes, Calvin's sage companion in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, who once remarked, "One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water."
Your customers are not children, nor are they "profit units". What do your customers hear while in your on-hold loop? Too often, it's something like "Your call is important to us, and will be answered in the order in which it was received" For the record, one call does not an "order" make. Apart from what may be seen by some as grammatical trivialities, the answer to the question of how well you communicate with your customers while they are on hold depends on how we define "communication". Despite living in the "information age", with its steady stream of "new and improved" communications technologies, it seems that, as a society, we are drifting away from true communication. The reasons for this are complex, but I'd like to at least encourage awareness of this trend and, hopefully, inspire some conscious resistance to it among businesses who seek to prosper through really communicating with, connecting with, and serving their customers.
In a required "Principles of Mass Communication" lecture class in college I once stood to my feet and challenged what I felt was the professor's overly simplistic definition of "communication", which was, "the transmission of a message from a sender ("A") to a receiver ("B"). This definition was illustrated by a simple line drawing of two squares labeled "A" and "B", respectively, with an arrow (the "message") in between the two squares, and pointing at "B". While such a spare illustration may serve for purely utilitarian purposes, when it comes to the message itself - and the reason "A" is sending it in the first place - I believe a broader perspective merits consideration. Simply put, if "B" has little or no idea of what "A" is actually trying to say - i.e. "A"s intended message, I, for one, don't think "A" has truly communicated with "B". In such instances the arrow in the middle might just as well be labeled "noise". My professor told me I had a good point to which he would later return. I sat back down at my desk, and waited.
Call it nitpicking, but I would suggest that communication involves more than merely sending a message. True communication, as I see it, does not happen until the intended audience not only receives but also understands the message, at least to some minimal extent. Granted, from a purely technical standpoint, the distinction is merely semantic, and my prof was perfectly correct in his definition. Rather than quibbling over semantics, however, perhaps, with regard to communicating with your customers on hold, the smartest thing would be to talk to them and find out what their experience is in your on-hold loop. They could be a source of constructive feedback and help you communicate more effectively, provide a higher level of service, and, potentially, improve your bottom line. Having an actual conversation with them while they are on hold would obviously be, by definition, unfeasible, but if you have an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude with regard to your on-hold loop, you might not be making the best use of this resource.
Holdtime Studios must be doing something right, as their clients' customers have actually been known to request that they be put back on hold so they can hear the rest of the on-hold message. As for defining "communication" an alternative to my college professor's definition which is also simple, but I think, for current purposes, rather more serviceable, is the word "connection".
By the way, my professor never did return to my point.
About the Author:
Learn more about Music on Hold. Stop by Tim Holdon's site where you can find out all about Hold Music System and what it can do for you.
