“I’d like those 20 minutes back please.”

I am probably on hold on a telephone more than most people. In the IT industry, being on hold for support is more than a regular occurrence. What surprises me is how much of a lost opportunity this customer contact time is for most companies. As we all know, hold music was originally composed by military people in order torture their captors. (That’s a joke, please no angry emails) Why anyone would have hold music so terrible that you would irritate someone seeking help from your company. In this day and age of music that you can download, there is no excuse for bad hold music.

One of the fundamentals of running a business should be to capture your customer’s attention and make all aspects of their experience with your company amazing. Don’t overlook the details, embrace them. I am not a big fan of a sales pitch playing on hold music. If someone is holding, they are usually looking for help. My opinion is that if I am looking for help, the help should be taken care of first before I am sold on the next great project. Once you have helped me, I might be interested in what else your company your company has to offer. So, why not put something interesting and or fun on your hold music. With most phone systems, this is a very easy thing to do. Get an iPod and hook it up.


How about for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, put on some Irish music. Why not try some “River Dance”, U2, Irish Pub Music….get creative and run with it. During the Grammy Awards, how about some nominated songs. During the Oscars, how about playing some memorable movie music? Change it up! At the very least, interesting hold music will keep your customers from getting annoyed with some boring tape loop. At best, your customers will remember that when they call, the experience of calling your company was a good one.


This will also set your organization apart from the crowd. Have fun with it. The customers will call up with new music and some will ask why it changed. Pick an obscure holiday. How about Boxing Day (Canada)? Put on some Rocky music just for fun. It certainly lightens the tone of the calls and allows everyone to have a good time with it.


The point is not necessarily to make your hold music a focal point of your company, but take something that most of us would agree is a real downside to contacting a company, and make it into something fun and amazing. Enhance your company image and customer satisfaction and save all of us from the torture known as tape loop hold music.