How to Use On-hold Marketing Effectively
On-hold Marketing
How to Use On-hold Marketing Effectively
Every organisation wants to make a great first impression – however all too often companies underestimate just how important the sound of their phone system is to their customers’ experience.
In actual fact, on-hold is about much more than just making a good impression. When used well it can be an incredibly effective marketing tool which can add significant business advantage.
On average, 20% of a caller’s time on the phone will be spent on-hold or in queue and it’s clear that the last thing you want to do is waste that valuable customer interaction with dreaded clichés or insincere statements.
Couple this with BT and Cisco’s whitepaper ‘2021 Autonomous Customer’ finding that “…a voice call remains customers’ number one choice for contact when they can’t get an answer online. Phone usage has declined this year but only by a little.”
Ensuring the Maximum Impact
So how do you use the on-hold space more effectively? How do you ensure maximum impact? What’s going to add the greatest benefit to your business, and more importantly, to your customers?
Well first things first, review what you’ve currently got in place. Does your voice artist truly represent your brand? Does the tone and language match your other contact points? If your website uses a lot of modern terminology and conversational writing, does your on-hold? What about your socials? All these things should be consistent, so when a customer decides to pick up the phone, they immediately recognise who you are as a business.
Then you need to be clear what it is you want to achieve. If it’s to boost sales, provide knowledge, build your brand, or a whole host of other stuff, then the on-hold space is perfect! You have a captive audience, and while they might switch off, or do something else while they’re waiting, they’ll certainly be listening at the start. And if you create an engaging, or even entertaining, experience they’ll be sure to listen longer.
So put your biggest offers at the start. But be careful. The way you word your message plays a huge part! Too pushy and you’ll lose your caller. Not enough benefit, their interest is gone. Too corporate for your target audience, “Yawn”. Or too familiar, and they lose respect. The right script can build your brand, as much as the wrong script can destroy it. And not doing anything is as bad as doing the wrong thing.
Some phone systems start your caller at the beginning of your production, which allows you to create a journey for them. Each message can act as a steppingstone building on the last one.
Other systems play the on-hold audio constantly, it’s like a river, callers hop onto the river at random points. So they’ll rarely hear the same message each time they call, which means you have to build a journey that reflects that experience.
Finally, put yourself in your callers’ shoes, listen to your on-hold experience and make sure it’s relevant. Or, why not get us to do it for you?
Blend Telecom Studio is an intuitive new service which allows you to order prompts for IVR menus, as well as music and marketing messages to play callers while in-queue or on-hold. It’s configured by you using a simple-to-use web portal.
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