Like many forms of communication: they both require expectations, communicate a message to a target audience, cost money, and incorporate decisions over design-placement-frequency of content change, and strategy.This is a helpful comparison because the interaction between a billboard and passers-by is easy to imagine. You may have considered the content of a billboard during your drive in to work this morning.

Think of your customized On Hold program as a billboard. When your customers are briefly On Hold, they are “driving by” your billboard. They’re hearing your company’s advertising messages, instead of seeing them on a billboard.

This comparison is especially helpful when exploring the question of how often to change or update the advertising message and content.

If your target market drives past a billboard only two or three times per year, it wouldn’t make sense to change the content monthly. Seeing a billboard two or three times isn’t enough to fatigue a viewer. On the other hand, if your target market is driving past the billboard daily, it does makes sense to consider a more frequent change in the billboards appearance to keep passers-by from ignoring it.

The same principle could apply to many forms of adverting…yep, even On Hold Marketing. Without a content change strategy one can effectively “un-do” the 3 big benefits of On Hold Marketing…callers will hang-up, will feel like the hold-time is looonger than it really was, and will zone out on the marketing messages.

Every business or practice is different. We’ll listen to you, learn about your callers, and recommend the right content-change strategy for you. 

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.

(...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.