Message & Music On Hold
Study: Music On Hold and Customer Satisfaction
A 2006 study by Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business explored the impact of on hold music on customer satisfaction… specifically, if people like the music they hear, do they believe their wait time is shorter? The study was published in the Journal of Service Research.
Here is a brief overview of the study:
- 75 percent of respondents who liked the music while on hold felt they had shorter wait times than those who did not like the music.
- 69 percent found that information on how long their wait would be did not make a difference in their perception of the wait
- Knowing what order number their call was did not have any effect on perceived wait times for 72 percent of the people surveyed.
Hold On For A Few Minutes
On Hold Statistics
USA BUSINESS TELEPHONE TODAY in Washington, D.C. conducted a survey to determine the effects of putting callers “on-hold.” The callers surveyed were routine callers seeking information. A total of 30,000 callers were placed “on-hold” for one minute under various conditions. Each call was then answered with the same message, “Thank you for waiting. Would you mind telling me how long you had to wait “on-hold?“
The results?
SILENCE (sample – 10,000 callers)
- 52 percent of callers dropped off the line
- 27 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 5 minutes
- 18 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 3 minutes
- 3 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 1 minute
MUSIC OR RADIO (sample – 10,000 callers)
- 13 percent of callers dropped off the line
- 56 percent estimated the on-hold time was less than 1 minute
- 28 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 1 minute
- 3 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 2 minutes
ON HOLD ADVERTISING (sample – 10,000 callers)
- 2 percent of callers dropped off the line
- 81 percent estimated the on-hold time was less than 1 minute
- 16 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 1 minute
- 1 percent estimated the on-hold time exceeded 2 minutes
Instead of letting your callers stay on hold listening to silence, the radio or background music without a message, have them listen to you and make their time spent on hold seem shorter, reducing call abandonment.
