Hands Up who likes being on hold? Anyone? No?

We all know that its bad manners to keep a caller on hold, but have you ever noticed how many businesses seem to be sooo good at it? You can tell a lot about a business and the respect they have for their clients by the particular hold mechanism they incorporate. I have to tell you, if poor hold audio was an Olympic sport these businesses would be going for GOLD. One hold audio I recently experienced was simply a deathly quiet, so much so I thought I had been dis-connected, another seemed to be a dodgy radio stream complete with the occasional white noise for some sort of effect. I was pretty sure that they weren't paying the licencing costs for this service either.

The point is that after being on hold with these organisations I had grown slightly annoyed due to a lack of respect for their caller (Me) and upon coming off hold I was in no mood for pleasantries. My line of discussion was not my finest work! Is this your ideal caller? If I was a client calling in and had built up the frustrations from the above process you would have a tough situation on your hands. As a person in the sales industries I like to prepare not only myself but my client for any meeting we are scheduled to have. If my clients were prepared in a way that had them edgy prior to the meeting, I know I will have to invest energy in overcoming the barrier's built before getting down to the business at hand.

I want to also challenge anyone who has made it past my ramblings so far to call into your own office and sit on hold for 10 minutes while thinking of your clients and what they would experience while on hold. Please DO NOT be complacent and feel that it’s not an issue because your callers are never on hold for more than 30 seconds. Unless you have a droid on reception with eight arms answering every call, there will always be a time when they won’t be there due to holidays or illness and your inbound calls will easily burst out to a ten minute hold time.

Host Tel have available as standard to all their clients selected audio clips along with pre-recorded auto attendants that can be customised to your requirements. Host Tel would be privileged to offer a sample audio clip for you to evaluate and compare with your current offering.

I would appreciate any feedback you may have where an experience on hold has been valuable or just down right frustrating.