On Hold Messaging and Marketing benefits with Asterisk

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!