20+ Powerful Ideas to Up Your On Hold Messaging
On Hold Messages should be as actively engaging and evolving as your website, marketing materials, and other social media efforts. It should tell your story. After all, businesses are like people - constantly changing and ever on the move.
Allow your callers to get to know your brand. Your audio brand plays a significant and complementary role to your visual brand.
Here are some ridiculously simple ways to improve your on hold messaging so that hold time is music to your customers' ears!
Holidays
1. Incorporate spooky sound effects for a Halloween on hold message. Check out this blog post on Halloween message & music on hold to get more creative ideas.
2. For Easter, ask us to exchange words like “come” with “hop” and “shop” with “hunt” for example. Why not use this as an opportunity to talk about the “eggs-ellent” savings you offer?
3. Add a holiday specific greeting.
4. Promote a holiday sale or limited-time offer.
5. Thank our troops leading up to and on Veteran’s Day and honor our fallen ones on Memorial Day.
On Hold Music
6. Change music to reflect Christmas and/or Hanukkah holidays.
7. Use patriotic hold music to show national support for holidays like 4th of July, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc.
8. Update music for springtime with a fresh, upbeat tune.
9. Get callers in the spirit with themed Halloween music.
10. Add nature sound effects for Spring and/or Summer seasons.
11. Refresh old elevator music in favor of a trendier sound.
Local News & Events
12. Local Sports: show support for local sports teams by congratulating them for a great season or telling callers on hold to mention the on hold message for a free pair of tickets to a game.
13. Local Charity: boost community awareness of your involvement in charity. Let callers know how you give back and how they can help towards the cause as well.
14. Local Events: in Houston, we have the rodeo. Is there an event where almost everyone participates in your city? If so, allow us to help you tweak the dialogue in your script to get in the spirit of the event.
Business Specific
15. Inform callers about important trends in your industry.
16. Help callers be in the know about newsworthy information that may affect him or her. They’ll thank you for it.
17. Have you added a product or service recently? Time to update your on hold message and tell the world about it!
18. Hours of operation changes – it’s imperative that these are always correct.
19. New location(s) grand opening announcements.
20. Store policy changes, including but not limited to: returns, exchanges, shipping & handling, accepting new types of money or insurances, etc.
21. Specific promotions and limited-time deals.
22. Hitting a milestone, such as a business anniversary or selling a certain amount of product.
23. Highlight a recent blog post. You work hard on these – make sure people read them!
24. Talk about an award your business won. Go on and brag a little… callers will be impressed.
25. Announce changes or improvements to your website.
26. Get referral business by letting callers know about finder’s fees.
27. Promote your active social media pages and encourage reasons why callers should follow you.
28. Feature an outstanding employee and how they have impacted the business.
29. Tell the story of how your business began. Callers will connect with you on a more personal level and it’s likely a story you can feel good about sharing.
Voice Talent
30. In many ways, a voice talent is the sound of your brand. Ensure your current voice talent(s) truly enhance your brand.
31. Use a British or Australian accent to sound unique and luxurious.
32. Star a child actor’s voice in the on hold message if your business caters to families and/or children (i.e. pediatricians, family doctors & dentists, etc.).
33. Feature a deep, masculine Southern accent for mainly male industries.
34. If you are using only one voice talent, add a second voice-over artist to the mix of the opposite gender to keep callers engaged.
Changing an on hold message seems like an arduous task, but there are steps you can take to make it easy on yourself.
A whole new script is not necessary when a few small tweaks throughout the year will get your callers to know exactly who you are as a company, ultimately showing them you care about their shopper experience and increasing your sales at the same time.
Are you pressed for time? Ask us to help you create a schedule of changes based on your on hold marketing plan. Once you approve it, we'll implement the updates year round.
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