In order to have music and messaging playing on one’s telephone system, the telephone system must have the parts and circuits to support message-on-hold.   The telephone industry refers to this feature as “MOH”.  Usually MOH support is found when the telephones are part of a “telephone system”…meaning that there is a central “brain” …or KSU (for Key Service Unit).

What is a KSU?

A KSU is a box about the size of a briefcase, usually hanging on the wall in a room with the routers, servers, telephone wires, water heater or even in a closet.  KSU stands for Key Service Unit.  It’ll say the name of the telephone system on the KSU. (e.g.: Avaya, Panasonic, etc)  The KSU is where all the telephone lines are connected.  The job of the KSU is to provide support for the many features we enjoy in today’s telephone system such as multi-line use, intercom, hold, paging, as well as input capabilities for background music and messages-on-hold.  The KSU is also the device that monitors which lines are on hold and makes sure the On Hold audio is only heard on those lines that are On Hold.

If you can locate the KSU, now it’s necessary to verify that it supports MOH.  This can be determined from the owner’s manual or by calling the local telephone dealer that services your KSU.  Some KSU’s have a music-ready jack on the outside, others have them hidden, and still others need to have the jack installed by a qualified telephone technician for a fee.

If there is no KSU to be found, the phones probably operate without a KSU.  This is known as a KSU-less phone system.  These systems have plenty of great features; however they do not support MOH.  (KSU-less phones are made by companies including AT&T, GE, Panasonic, RCA and others.)

Or, it is possible that you have subscribed to a “cloud based” or “hosted” service, whereby the operating software running your phones is off-site at a service provider or carrier site.   In this case, we would need to know the name of your provider and a contact phone number of your sales or technical rep.  

In any case, it’s always fine to call us with the make and model number of your telephone system and we’ll do the research for you.

Today I was asked how the newer VoIP telephone systems made a difference in the way we help businesses and practices with messages On Hold.  It’s a good question and because we’re receiving more and more calls about service for VoIP, we dedicate significant on-going training and study to keeping up with this and other emerging telephone system technologies.

The short answer is that VoIP technology doesn’t hinder us at all.  Increasingly, VoIP telephone systems have the traditional built-in “music-in” jack where an external digital On Hold player can be plugged in.  In other cases, the customer has access to a web-based GUI (Graphical User Interface) that allows them to upload On Hold files.  Both technologies allow the end user to make changes to their On Hold message at their convenience.

Then, there are many VoIP customers that simply want us to e-mail their On Hold production to them as a .wav sound file.  This type of system can introduce the need to have I.T. staff involved in loading the sound file to the server as well as variables as to the way the server “manages the sound file”. 

Here’s what we mean by “manages the sound file”…

It's preferable for the server to play the audio file in a continuous loop so that callers hear a different message every time they're placed On Hold, but not all systems allow this, instead causing the audio file to play from the beginning every time.  Even then, there are often work-arounds we can suggest. Playing the On Hold message from the beginning for every On Hold call means the caller hears that 1st message every time they go On Hold.  The other messages, 2 through 10, may never be heard depending on the hold time. A short chat with the I.T. staff usually gives us the information we need to design a production that enhances the callers experience with varied messages.

What makes us the right choice for VoIP systems?  As a marketing company (that just happens to have two digital audio workstations and music libraries in-house) our main focus is creating productions that deliver an enhanced customer or patient On Hold experience.  The technology is simply how it happens.

(...or How DO Rock Stars Afford Those Lavish Cribs?) 

If you’ve just decided to upgrade your callers’ On Hold experience, you may be asking the question above.  It’s a great question and ignoring the answer could put you in violation of U.S. Copyright law…and cost you a hefty fine.

There are a host of people involved in the creation and production of songs and music, including composers, authors and publishers.  In fact, their musical works are protected as “intellectual property” by U.S. Copyright Law.  Here are just two examples of how copyright holders make their living thru licensing:

Bought a CD? A portion of purchase price for a music CD goes to the copyright holder. The purchaser of the CD is granted license for personal listening and for people in the car or home. (not for re-broadcast at the neighborhood bar-b-que, school pep rally, or thru a telephone system.

Listen to music on the radio? As you know, radio stations derive their income from advertising fees or subscriptions. A portion of the radio station’s income goes to the copyright holders of the music they broadcast. The listener is granted license for personal listening and for people in their car or home. (not for re-broadcasting to groups, pep rallies, or thru an intercom or telephone system.)

Bottom line: Playing copyrighted music through a business telephone system constitutes a “re-broadcast” and requires a separate and specific license.

Best Solution: Customized Music and message productions provided by On Hold Marketing are properly covered under licenses maintained with multiple music producers.

For those readers who see the value in the question, but don’t yet have an On Hold message program, here’s what On Hold is all about. 

When your customers call and are momentarily put On Hold, you lose control of the customer. Since you’re not tending directly to them, their behavior can take some undesirable turns.  For instance, some will hang-up…and many will hang on for a bit, all the while growing just a little more frustrated in their, albeit incorrect, perception that you’re ignoring them.

A music and professionally voiced message on hold program, if properly created, will occupy the customer until you can take their call.  This reduces the ill effects of silence or radio On Hold.  The fun part is that we can use topics about your business to inform and entertain them, while also making hold time more enjoyable.

What questions should be asked when considering how often to make content changes?

•       What expectations do I have for my On Hold message?                                                                 

      (just noise?, inform?, entertain?, branding?, image building?)

•       How often does my typical customer/client call?

      (do they call several times weekly, or only a couple of times during the year)

•       What external changes during the year have an impact on the needs of my target market? 

•       How often does my internal product or service offering change during the year?
•       How much time am I willing to spend thinking of new topics?                                                      

Raising Expectations – If your expectation is to only have some kind of noise on hold, there is little reason to change the content.  At least callers will know they haven’t been disconnected.  However, an unplanned and out of date message On Hold program can influence your callers to hang up or at least cause them to be in a less-than-friendly mood once their call is taken.   A little planning and use of proven On Hold messages studies can turn a potential hang-up into a loyal and long term customer.  Raising expectations to include current, accurate, and engaging content will bring results in the form of improved branding, awareness of your breadth of product and service offerings, and simply a better caller experience.

Typical Caller- Let’s use a visual analogy of your callers On Hold experience.  Think of any roadside billboard that you pass in your daily travels…and now think of yourself as the owner of that billboard and the drivers as your typical callers On Hold.  If the drivers see your billboard daily, then it makes sense for you to change the billboard content frequently, say monthly or quarterly.  However, if they only see your billboard several times a year, then changing it annually can be just as effective, not to mention more economical in terms of your time and money.

To use a concrete example, think of someone you call a lot. A good example may be a distributor of something you consume or resell in quantity. You’ll likely experience hold time frequently and things that would cause you to become impatient (or even hang up) could be silence On Hold, an On Hold message that repeats often, or On Hold messages that you’ve heard repeatedly over several calling experiences.  Since the typical caller is On Hold more often with a distributor, frequent content changes should be considered.

On the other hand, think of someone you call infrequently. A good example may be your tailor or dry cleaners. Since you call infrequently, this kind of business can change their content once or twice a year without the caller noticing, and the business can still realize their higher expectations for their On Hold messages.

External Influences – The needs of your target market have a significant impact on what you inventory and promote…and these needs can change due to lots of forces.  Even physicians see changes in what tests and treatments are needed due to seasonal sports injuries.  The social event-filled holidays can make dental patients think about tooth whitening.  Businesses of every kind can see their inventory change due to seasonal and weather changes. Consider how your market changes during the year and see these changes as opportunities to make your On Hold message more current, more relevant, prompting callers to ask for more information.

Internal Offering Changes - Consider how your inventory and promotions change during the year due to supply-side changes in availability, model changes…even changes in your staff can have an impact on your offering. New people bring new talents and skills.

Your Time- Using the above mentioned criteria for selecting a content update frequency is legitimate.  However, if one hasn’t the time to think of new topics and approve our written scripts, then planned updates may not be completed.  It may be better to select a less ambitious plan and order content changes as time allows, than to fall short of a structured plan.

It’s your call.

Ok, surely it’s your call, it’s your business and you call the shots. Beyond that, it’s “your call” in the sense that your advertising dollars paid for that inbound call.  I like to say that the “ringing” noise your telephone makes is the sound of your marketing dollars trying to get back into your wallet!

Just as walk-in customers get an impression about you by their experience in your lobby or reception area, they also get an impression of you from how their telephone call is treated.  Keeping a current and engaging On Hold message reduces hang ups and makes hold time seems shorter while enhancing your professional image.  And speaking of professional image, the benefits of fewer hang-ups and improved customer service alone justifies the relatively low cost.  Any direct sales activity can be considered as gravy. 

Ask us to help you evaluate the right update plan.   We'll help you maintain the right image while maximizing the results of your On Hold Marketing.

How many good things come out of association meetings?  Ok, many things…but I’m thinking about one good thing.  That is, meeting people that can view a business from a different perspective from the owner’s every-day-right-in-the-middle-of-it viewpoint.  I’ll bet that you’ve experienced a conversation where you’ve been able to offer a colleague a solution to a problem, right off the top of your head, even though you didn’t know nearly as much detail about the problem as the owner.  The benefit of an outside perspective is simply remarkable.

One could say that attending association meetings is one way to get ahead of the competition…to be “the best of the best of the best”, but maybe it’s more critical than that. At a HARDI Conference (this is where distributors of heating and air conditioning equipment meet) it occurred to me that the information being discussed was worth more than just what’s needed to stay ahead…it’s needed to just stay!

My experience is that association attendees not only have a built-in “outside of the box” perspective and, as one would expect, have more than considerable expertise in the business of the associated companies.  In the case of HARDI, it’s all about distribution and there I became acquainted with a Mr. Howard Coleman. Mr. Coleman’s company, MCA Associates, is in the business to provide that “outside of the box” perspective and expertise I was talking about. Over the years since I’ve known Howard, I’ve been witness to newsletters and articles about distribution management and have become even more convinced of the value of information gained at association meetings from people like Howard…much of it can be gleaned from publications free!

So here’s my encouragement to stick with your associations. Ours happens to be the On Hold Messaging Association which we attend and enjoy annually.  More importantly, we benefit from the relationships, the freely shared knowledge base, and a global market view of changes in “messages on hold” that no one can navigate alone.

If you’re reading this as a distributor, check out www.mcaassociates.com, maybe even signup for Howard’s newsletter.

If you live in Virginia, you’re part of an interesting heritage.  I’m not sure the founder knew it at the time, but when Lloyd Shockley founded On Hold Marketing in 1989,he was one of the very first On Hold companies anywhere.  Ask anybody. In 1989 very few telephone systems even had a way to connect an external audio source, and those that did were playing a radio to callers on hold. (a violation of copyright law)  So Lloyd had surely hit upon a need, a need that fell squarely in the lap of his talents as an ad agency entrepreneur.  (The Shockley Agency had been operating in Richmond since 1982.)

The first true association of On Hold companies, the On Hold Messaging Association, (OHMA) wasn’t even created until the year 2000.  By then, On Hold Marketing was a fully established company serving businesses and practices in over 20 states, Canada,and the U.K.   Lloyd Shockley was recognized as one of the foremost pioneers of our industry and was asked to serve on the OHMA board.

On Hold Marketing has been providing audio studio services, professional copy writing, and telephone equipment support for over 20 years now, but one doesn’t survive this long without going thru some transitions.  Keeping up with the changes in telephone systems is enough to run some on hold companies completely out of business.  The introduction of computer/internet based telephone systems is a perfect example of a new technology introduction that can obsolete a business model to the extent that it simply cannot serve the market. Changes in the audio production process have gone from analog mechanisms and enough outboard processors to fill a building…to a computer running special software, replacing tons of gear. Did I mention doing business over the internet?  This change has not only impacted how sound files are moved around, but also how customers can hear voice talent, music, and productions to make better informed decisions and become comfortable form relationships with us, even though we’re thousands of miles away.

Virginia, even though one of the oldest states, is also among the innovators of what we take for granted…music and messages onhold….which, by the way, is responsible for helping just about every business and practice every day.

Months ago we added a “Live Chat” feature to our web pages to give web site visitors a direct connection to us…and the experience has been surprising. Yes, we get inquiries from people searching for a better On Hold Marketing provider, but I believe we get more live-chat inquires from customers of OTHER On Hold companies that want to complain about the service they’re getting.

We think we know why we receive complaints about other providers.  Customers often think we’re their provider because there are so many on hold companies that have a company name similar to ours…..so, when someone Googles “On Hold Marketing”, they see our listing first (since we have earned the #1 position with the major search engines).

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  When the offended customer realizes that we’re not the company that offended them, they often become customers…and the world becomes a better place.

The question is “Why are our competitors creating so many complaints about lack of service, incomplete productions, not returning phone calls, and productions…and choose to remain invisible and apparently uninterested in customer satisfaction?”  Naturally, we can’t answer this because we’re not them, but we do see it as an increasing trend. 

It’s true, we do make it easy to find us…which has contributed to us hearing complaints about our competitors.   I guess that’s the point.  We do complete productions on time, return phone calls, and work hard to get customers to update their audio On Hold programs…and when you need to find us…we’re easy to find. You’ll find all our contact info on our On Hold player and invoices, or just google “On Hold Marketing”…we’ll be #1.

One might say that every customer has a fear that sometime during their telephone inquiry they won’t be taken care of in a way that meets their expectations. It’s simply a sign of where the lack of customer service by many companies has taken us.   Telephone customers fear a number of potentially unpleasant outcomes:

- They’ll never get to speak with a human being

- They won’t be treated respectfully

- A language barrier will make communication difficult

- The product or service they want won’t be available, or affordable, or payment terms won’t be    bearable

- They’ll have to navigate an unfriendly auto attendant

- They’ll be left on hold indefinitely, or simply disconnected 

Unfortunately, these events are common place and repeatedly support the public’s fear of a less-than-stellar calling experience. However, patients calling their Dentist or Doctor have a real and legitimate fear that their visit will include a something even more fearful than poor customer service…and that is…real pain.  It is likely that their upcoming visit will include some pain, the kind that makes you say “ouch” or, maybe even sedation or pain reducing medication.  Even if no serious pain is anticipated, the mere call for the appointment can include some built-in anxiety. 

The patient's pre-existing anxiety is precisely why a customized On Hold program for a medical practice requires extra attention by the producer.  Compared to programs created for businesses, the message they hear must be more caring, more soothing, more comforting, & more assuring.  This is what makes “Patients On Hold” programs unique.  The script is crafted in such a way that information is presented in the spirit of sharing…not shoving.  Your voice talent is directed to deliver the informational messages in an especially low-key, assuring & caring tone.  Music selection is made to create a more soothing environment for those few moments of hold time. The duration and spacing of messages is designed to flow smoothly, but interestingly…as opposed to the jarring and interrupting advertising we often experience. 

Today’s Dental or Medical office requires a different, more caring approach their patients' On Hold experience…or they may be creating just another fearful…and painful…customer experience.

If you’re not a student of inbound telephone call statistics, you may not be aware that every business day, many phone calls are terminated before the sale or transaction is made because callers don’t like to wait on hold in silence…and they hang-up!

Ok, there may be other reasons why people hang up early.  Maybe their tea-pot started whistling, or the baby cried, or the dog was eating their homework…but much of the time, it’s because the caller felt like their On Hold experience was not up to par with their expectation of customer service. 

That is to say that their perception of the time in waiting was too long…

…and their response is to disconnect or hang-up, terminating the sale or transaction

…and possibly the relationship present and future.

Enter Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity, commonly expressed as E=mc² .

This, thankfully, for the rest of us, has also been expressed like this:

“When you sit with a nice girl for two minutes, it seems like two seconds.

             Put your hand on a hot stove for two seconds, it seems like two minutes.

                         That’s relativity.”

The way your callers perceive their elapsed time On Hold is relative.

- A pleasant On Hold experience will be perceived as a less time than actual

- An unpleasant On Hold experience will be perceived as more time than           actual. (Ouch!)                                                                                                  

Making an On Hold experience more painful than it needs to be is simply wrong…and bad for business…especially when there are intelligent, proven, and cost effective methods to cause On Hold time to be perceived as shorter than it actually is.

Want to create a more pleasant On Hold experience that’s seems shorter rather than longer ?  Get in touch with a real studio specializing in On Hold message creation, preferably a member of the On Hold Messaging Association.

If the folks that developed Asterisk had approached the companies that create on hold messaging content and asked how the Asterisk platform could best be designed for on hold messaging flexibility, the answer and wish list would have been nearly identical to what is in place today with Asterisk.   

Not all emerging phone system technologies that tout VoIP as a leading benefit have in effect benefitted the on hold messaging industry.  In fact, many hosted IP offerings are a clear step in reverse in terms of providing flexibility for the end user customer.  Some Hosted IP offerings will not offer the end user ANY option for customized on hold content.  They offer canned music only. 

So what’s so special about Asterisk?  It’s simple and can be explained in the form of 3 major benefits.  

1. More content choices:  While a clear majority of phone systems offer only one source for providing content, Asterisk supports multiple sources in the form of audio file slots per customer.  This means that the on hold content can vary per customer.  Human Resources, Sales, Customer Support can ALL have their own unique messaging programs playing for their callers.  This greatly improves the effectiveness of how a company can educate callers on products and services by applying the content directly to why the caller is calling in the first place.  Marketing professionals know the value of playing appropriate content to a captive audience (callers on hold are highly captive).  This sort of flexibility allows the phone system to truly function as a value business tool in terms of branding and marketing a company and its capabilities.   Additionally, there are many companies that happen to allow other companies in their multi-tenant building ‘space’ on their phone system.   This can be a huge problem if the phone system only offers one source for messaging content as you may imagine.  With Asterisk, the programmer can easily assign the proper content to the appropriate company and department.

2. Lower Cost:  The Asterisk platform allows for simple loading of audio files, eliminating the requirement for purchasing 3rd party equipment.

3. Ease of Management:  Customers that subscribe to frequent updating of their on hold messaging can do so easily without the intervention of service personnel.  This saves in time and hassle and money in the long haul.

In summary, Asterisk is about as flexible as it gets for the ability to cost effectively create an effective marketing and branding tool for a company.   This flexibility is most likely overlooked during the sales process, as the audience that benefits from this flexibility is not typically the telecom or IT professional as much as it is the executive or marketing group!