Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Dave,

Just so I'm clear....

I call a company and that company's on-hold message is designed, by your customer, to advertise the other products that company offers?

The down side is that no one really wants to be on hold. Therefore a company runs the risk of alienating a customer by advertising when they're most irritated...unless I'm missing something.

Now that I've gone all negative on you....here's a story that might help. We had a customer who used to call the competition just to see what radio station they used for on-hold. Then..they advertised on that station. (Wasn't my idea, but it was a great one. No one in the competition really paid attention to it)

So a message that says "your competition is hijacking your on hold message" (that's off the cuff) would answer the objection that "playing the radion is cheaper". By the way, a lawyer friend of mine told me that playing a radio station for an onhold message is a "re-broadcast" and not allowed without permission. That means some angry customer who wants to stick it to a company, could concievably cause a real problem...if they notified the right person.

Michael

I agree with others that wait times long enough to warrant music with ads are probably too long and annoying (for the caller). But, that said, you still have to play the hand you're dealt, and the client wants to find a way to sell this product.

My suggestion would be to devise some consumer research, if there isn't some already, that demonstrates how music/ads on hold actually improve consumer attitudes and/or intent-to-purchase when compared to silence and/or music only.

If you can demonstrate the benefit this way, you should be able to convince your target audience that it's worth a shot. Maybe even bundle some custom research into the sale, so that you can "prove" it's working for them, and if it's not they get a free make-good of some kind.

Hope this helps.

Dear Dave

In truth, if you are waiting to speak to someone about something which is, at least in your mind “Important” then the last thing you want to hear is an advertisement about the services you can’t talk to someone about because they are busy.

Here’s a solution which requires a commitment to CRM principles and a real will to enable your client’s staff to make it work as well as the investment in the necessary technology.

It involves not putting people on-hold except as a last resort – that being when you run out of real people to pick up a phone. Any people!

When the recipient of a call is on the phone, the call is passed to the next available employee, who works to a simple brief: They explain that the person the caller wanted to speak to is engaged and that in order to be of service, could they take brief details of the nature of the call, such that when the intended recipient come free, they can transfer the call along with the other basic details to the recipient via the customer service system (Sounds better than the CRM system)

They then pull up the caller’s record or, if they are a new caller, they create one. They do the donkey work of getting their phone number and email address, postal address and the nature of the call – be it an enquiry or a complaint. Meanwhile, the intended recipient is notified via their phone or their screen or both that a call is waiting and that a member of staff is taking the callers details.

If, within a reasonable period of time (The maximum is that time which it takes to take down the caller’s details, the details of their query and any appropriate discussion) the intended recipient becomes free, the call is forwarded to them, along with the details captured on the CRM system, straight to his or her screen and telephone.

This requires that every member of who is capable of having a brief conversation, from receptionist through to the warehouse staff becomes an occasional company sales representative and it requires that the CRM system is enabled for the use of all members of staff rather than the usual sales and customer service teams, but in terms of capturing vital data and keeping a caller satisfied, it is, to my mind, unparalleled in offering a caller-care experience. Once the caller is connected, they don’t have to waste any time repeating contact details and can get straight to the subject of their call.

If the intended recipient is still on the line when the details have been taken, the caller can be assured that their call will be returned and the company must have a policy in place that this WILL happen.

Modern switchboards and even the middle-market CRM systems can make this a reality. The stumbling block is the willingness of most companies to give almost all of their staff a customer / prospect care role, regardless of their job.

Be brave and try it!

Best wishes

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

Dave-

I'm going to go at this from the business side, rather than the customer side. I worked for a consumer electronics company that had technical phone support in-house. Granted the best scenario is that a customer would not have to wait on hold for a technician, but the reality is they do.

So now that I've dealt reality to you, here's what we did. We used the on-hold message to do the following:

1. Introduce new products
2. Inform about the web site and how they might find help on-line.
3. Talk about upcoming events and shows
4. Make the customer aware of any new regulations that may be important to their business. (kind of "did you know...")
5. Thank the customer for their call and for their interest in our company.
6. During the holidays we would get a recording of holiday music and wish them holiday greetings.

We had both dealers and customers calling in and sometimes this on-hold message was their first exposure to new products and services. Is it great to be on hold? Of course not, but if your company makes quality products, wouldn't it be great to know what else the company makes?

Hope this helps some!

Jeff

I've been playing around with VOIP and a few open source systems that run on top of Asterix. I can play MP3 files as music on hold, or record my own MP3 file and run commercials on hold. Better yet, I can route the calls through to my cell phone. I can also set up rules for calls and keep wait times to a minimum. If I set up a proper call cascade, the call will chase my staff accros land lines and cell phones until they get a live operators as fast as possible.

All in all, I'm pretty impressed with the flexibility of what is available for opensource. If only I had more time to work on my call centre server VOIP system, I'd be able to do even more.

No offense, but I think in today's fast paced world, one might have a competitve advantage making sales answering calls in person than advertising on hold. We have a bank in town that is advertising the fact they have NO Voicemail or on hold, just real live operators...something to think about when everyone else is zagging.

Darcy Moen

WOW! No one wants to help you sell this product/service. We use this technolgy and it does help reinforce brand and drive new product sales. My experience has been good with on-hold messages. Have you thought about getting testimonials from current customers. Develop a white paper on how it has impacted your customers business. I read somewhere that a Pizza Hut used this technology to help sell special offers and customers responded positively. Try a referral program with existing clients. Give the existing clients additional free recordings or prizes if they provide referrals. Send out a www.zoomerang.com survey to existing clients to collect data for your white paper. At the end of the survey have a hyper link to a web page that asks for a referral. Each order form should have a place on the order form that requires the sales person to fill in a referral name at the time of the order. Do an email campaign directed toward plastic surgeons, dentists, dermatologists. They all need this service. If possible do a 30 day money back guarantee or a free trial. Try doing a webex with current customers speaking to potential customers about the advantages of this technology.

I hope this helps.

Daniel

It’s not the case that we don’t want to help, it is the case, for me at least, that I think the idea to be counter-productive. Of course, if you have a different point of view, you should express it and defend it vigorously with argument and examples. That’s why we have a forum!

I don’t even think that you are wrong in your supposition – I just disagree with you, so well done for contributing to the debate.

Best wishes


Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions and SalesVision

I don't know much about auto-attendant technologies, but what about creating on-hold-aikido? Try to redirect some of the callers on-hold energy.

Give listeners on-hold options:

1. press 1 to tell us your best/worst customer service story (enter to win contest...)
2. press 2 to hear the latest sports scores
3. press 3 to hear the joke of the day
4. press 4 to listen to the most egregious muzac we could find
5. press 5 to hold in silence so you can put us on speaker and do other things
6. press 6 to hear more about our Flux Capacitor and how it's changing people's futures

Think content generation, but for on-hold, vs. websites. You client provides the content and updates it daily. Could be a good on-gong gig for you to generate the content.

In the customer service field, there is nothing worse than having no choice. The above at least gives the person on-hold some control and an outlet to vent some frustration. Just make sure the CSRs have the punchline for the joke of the day.

Trevor