On hold messages and auto-attendant announcements reach distributors and consumers from manufacturing and distribution facilities.

With a volume of daily phone calls that rivals the busiest call centers in the nation, Blue Linx Corporation keeps buyers up to date while they wait.

Blue Linx Corporation began in 1954 as the distribution division of Georgia-Pacific Corporation and today is the largest distributor of building products in the US. Blue Linx takes care of 11,500 customers in the USA, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. To keep those customers informed while they wait on-hold, Blue Linx depends on Easy On Hold.

Manufacturers and distributors may not be talking directly to the end-consumer, but “people buy from people” and in today’s drive-thru world, nobody likes to wait. People on hold means buyers on hold, and that gives manufacturers and distributors a chance to talk about new products, special promotions and company news.

Article by Julie Cook

Last weekend I volunteered at a massive garage sale for my son’s high school marching band. The gymnasium was filled with table after table of the junk that would become someone else’s treasure. One parent was so anxious to clean house that she showed up with a U-Haul full of cast-offs (the organization made $1,000 from her donations alone).

A curious thing about the garage sale economy: It’s truly an underground one, often with high-ticket, high-value items walking out the door for pennies. We all know that’s the way it is, and if you try to buck the system or won’t haggle, you run the risk of sitting in a fold-up chair in your driveway at 5 pm on a Saturday afternoon staring at the same junk you’d set out so carefully that morning. At the high school sale, I saw a gold-plated silverware set that sold online at $300 going for $35, and really expensive sports gear (I know sports gear; I have 3 boys) walking out for $20. Garage sales = cast offs = pennies on the dollar.

I think business owners and sales professionals can bring a garage-sale mentality to their products and services. In a panic to make a sale (or make payroll), they move too fast to offer discounts on the spot. You’re asked to discount or match a price, as if you’re selling soybeans or some other commodity. Afterward, you’re left feeling “had.” Do you know the feeling?

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the best-selling Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness, writes in his blog that objections to price are actually a buying signal obscured by some kind of perceived risk. Gitomer says we need to re-engage the buyer and find out why they wanted to buy in the first place. For me, that means re-visiting the original problem that sparked the motivation to consider buying in the first place.  “If I uncover the buyer’s motive,” says Gitomer, “I will make a sale regardless of price. If I engage the prospective customer in a value-based and value-driven discussion, I might be able to get them to see my perspective.”

What value do you bring to the table? What problem do you solve right here, right now for your prospects? Focus on that, and you can let the hagglers be your competitor’s problem. Remember to include phrases in your on hold script that reinforce how and why your product and services solve your target market’s problems. We can help you with this; just ask.

Here’s to your growing business!

Special Article by Julie Cook on creating a better customer experience.

Our building is situated on an acre of woods, and it’s the norm to feel like we’re in the middle of a Disney movie as we watch the deer, rabbits, squirrels and birds congregate on our property.

Here he is, our loyal friend.

One day last summer a cute collarless Jack Russell terrier emerged from the woods, scampering through our yard, clearly out of place and clearly an escapee from

a nearby neighborhood. We scooped him up, named him Scrappy Doo for the day (although he was much cuter and far less annoying than Scooby’s annoying cousin), put a notice on Craigslist, and by the next day, the pup and happy owner were reunited.

Well, today he’s back. Scrappy Doo (we never got his real name) freed himself once again and ended up at our doorstep, obviously remembering all the love, the playing, the cuddling, the lap-sitting we gave him those short few hours.

Okay, so it was the food.

But my point is, he chose us when he could’ve sniffed at the door of any other business or home in the area. When he had the freedom to choose, he knew we would have the goods he wanted. It was burned in his memory, if not his belly.

And so it goes with customers.

They can go to any of your competitors, but they will keep choosing you if you make every experience unforgettable. Make it forgettable and they’ll go somewhere else. Loyalty can be built overnight and lost just as fast.

What can you do right now to build loyalty? Take a look at my list below. How many do you have in place? How many can you start working on tomorrow?

7 WAYS TO LOVE YOUR CUSTOMER

1. Make me feel important.
Every employee must be genuinely interested in making me feel like royalty when I walk in the door. It starts with a smile and eye contact.

2. Make your facility smell nice.*
It’s called scent technology and you won’t believe what’s possible with scents specially formulated for a business or retail environment.

3. Make it look nice.
If your decorating scheme is more than 10 years old, it’s probably time for something fresh, even if it’s just new carpet.

4. Make it sound nice.*
No local radio station blaring overhead (awful! And illegal!). Use custom overhead music that fits your brand.

5. Make the wait great.*
Don’t leave me sitting on hold in silence or suffering through radio commercials (again, awful! and illegal!). I think either of these two alone leaves a caller feeling more forgotten than anything.

6. Be an expert.
Know your product and your industry better than anyone you know. If you’re smart, you make me feel smart for choosing you.

7. Understand my problem before you try to help me.
Ask lots of questions before you launch in with advice. Getting it half-right makes it all wrong. Train your employees to ask questions first, talk later.

*Easy On Hold specializes in these services. Ask us for advice and solutions.

Be unforgettable to your customers and they’ll keep coming back…just like our little canine friend.

Julie Cook

Using radio to keep your callers entertained while they wait on hold? Run, don’t walk, and rip the cord out of the wall. Your next sale could depend on it.

Way back in the 90′s, I decided to start Easy On Hold after a chance experience with a local restaurant. One evening, I called up a popular eating establishment to make a reservation, but was promptly placed on hold. While waiting, I heard a radio station playing a commercial for another restaurant across town.

You can probably guess what happened next. I promptly hung up, phoned in a reservation at that other restaurant and enjoyed a fabulous meal. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking about how downright dumb a business owner would have to be to run content on their hold button over which they had no control whatsoever.

With that, welcome to Easy On Hold, officially launched in 1997, to help businesses understand the importance of giving their callers a great on-hold experience.

So what happens? Typically, the telephone system installer offers to do a favor by plugging a 24/7 audio source (radio) into the music on hold port before signing off on the job. This demonstrates that the on hold port is active and working, but it is also dangerous. In addition to ads for their competitors being heard, rebroadcasting a radio signal on your phone system is not legal. In an article by attorney Mike Wilson, the downside of sidestepping proper music licensing for on-hold use is steep.

Actual damages as well as statutory damages of up to $20,000 can be awarded for each copyrighted song performed without a license. The damages can be up to $100,000 if the infringement is willful. And those who willfully infringe on a copyright for commercial advantage or private gain can be fined up to $25,000, be sentenced to jail time of up to a year,
or both.

Wait, don’t radio stations pay the royalties?

Most people using radio on hold probably are not aware that they’re in violation of any laws, in that they assume the radio station has already covered all licensing costs on their end.  It’s true that radio broadcast stations are licensed to perform the music they carry on their airwaves, but your phone system is technically creating a RE-broadcast. Radio phone on hold music is considered an unlicensed, separate performance under the copyright law. The spirit of the law is that responsibility falls to the end-user, so your re-use of a radio station is therefore subject to fees. Read more: Easy On Hold Whitepaper: Is It Legal To Use Radio On Hold?

Control what your callers hear.

A well-written on-hold program will communicate helpful information about your products, services and other aspects of your company that make you unique–and that affirm in your caller’s mind that, yes, I made the right decision contacting this company.

That misguided restaurant could have maintained the loyalty of a customer that night had it approached its on hold messaging seriously. Then again, maybe we wouldn’t be here today.

It’s easy to think that all on hold companies are alike… Throw some paragraphs together, have someone read it, add some music, voila, you have an on hold message. That may be the tact of many message on hold producers—hurry up, slap it together, and send it to you. During 1997, Easy On Hold’s first year in business, it became clear that the industry needed something better. On hold messages were already becoming a hated commodity.

Coming from a marketing background, Easy On Hold founders established an approach that has served our clientele well and is still embraced by our entire team. That approach is, every minute on hold really counts.

It’s not enough to grab a few sentences off your site or brochure and call it good. It’s not enough to have a “radio announcer” read your script, add some music, and call it good. It must be treated like the marketing tool is really is, with strategy and care. We work with a scriptwriter who is a former radio news director and broadcaster, so she has an “ear” for how to ferret out interesting details and capturing those details in a way that will be interesting to someone listening (very different than a written piece that is meant for the eyes). After all, it is a conversation we’re having with our callers, right?

Next, the announcers read your script with a tone that matches up with where your callers are emotionally…a script for a tire shop or a cruise line is going to be read differently than a script for a healthcare provider, which needs a caring, compassionate tone. No two companies are alike, no two scripts are alike. I’ve heard on hold scripts that are read the same way regardless of the subject matter—you wonder if they even really knew what they were reading. That just shouldn’t happen.

And finally the music. Our studio engineer, a competent musician himself, takes the music and pulls it all together, and we invest thousands of dollars in our music library so that we can offer our customers just the right piece of music that will bring that emotional final touch to the production.

After the production is created, it travels through our quality control stage, where our production coordinator listens to it for accuracy; our goal is to make sure the client never receives a production with a mistake in it.

This leads us to the second big difference-maker between on hold messaging companies: customer service. Everyone says they have great customer service, right? Here’s what that means at Easy On Hold:

• We continue to revise your production until you love it. Some companies will give you 2 revisions, for example—ours are unlimited. If you’re not 100% happy with it, you won’t be at peace and you won’t recommend us. Did you really win in that scenario? No, and neither did we if you think about it. So we keep honing it until you say it’s perfect.
• Another customer service plus is our daily tech help—we have a full time tech director able to help you if you encounter any technical trouble at all.
• And after the sale, if you bought more than one production, we’ll send you friendly email reminders of how many productions are remaining in your package so that you have the confidence that you’re receiving everything you ordered (some on hold companies hope you’ll forget so that they don’t have to honor them), whether it takes you a year or years to use it up.

Finally, a big difference between message on hold companies is the purchase model. Are you looking for a one-time fee situation, or are you looking for a monthly or annual situation? These are important factors that get missed until it’s too late and you’re stuck in a contract you didn’t expect.

These are aspects of a company you won’t pick up from their website, so if that’s all you see then yes, it can appear we’re ‘all alike.’ It’s important to get a glimpse inside of how your on hold company is wired and structured to make sure you get a quality product and care that makes you feel like you’ve made the best choice.

Below are some recent testimonials that underscore the value of being different here at Easy On Hold.

Simply amazing!  Seriously, the best service from anyone that I have ever worked with! Thank you so much, please personally thank your team from all of us here at Midwest. The staff loved it and the customers asked us questions because of it! I will undoubtedly recommend your service to anyone that I discuss this topic with. The recordings were perfect and with all this service for $950 we could not be more satisfied.  Ken, Midwest Photo Exchange

Shaw’s experience with EasyOnHold has been very positive.  Each time we have worked on detailed projects, there has been a strong commitment to meeting our requirements.  In addition, EasyOnHold has engaged Shaw to understand our business and while providing leadership and best practices for managing our marketing message. EasyOnHold provides a consistent, brand specific voice.  We have been updating messages for several years and the experience for our callers through these changes has remained constant. Pam Holder, Customer Service/Logistics Business Solutions Shaw Industries Group Inc.

Spotlight Pages has used many voice over and on hold companies from around the world. Easy on hold is the best if not the best in the world voice over and on hold music we’ve had the pleasure of working with in years. The employees are very patient, diligent and friendly. We can’t find one problem with their service, it’s an impeccable program. If you need voice over or on hold music, I highly recommend them! Our company and it’s 1600+ employees wants to thank Easy On Hold, we ALL trust you with our business.  Amber Hicks and the Spotlight Pages Team

There’s an old-school on-hold marketing approach that says, “load up that script with all the content you can dream up. Throw everything in it–including the kitchen sink!”

I cringe when I work with a client with that kind of thinking because what they don’t understand is that repetitive marketing is effective marketing. One-size-fits-all marketing falls flat. A script that tries to cover too much ground is like throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks; a little bit does, but the rest just slowly falls to the ground leaving behind a real mess.

On hold marketing works best when you limit your message to a single idea, and resell it over and over by writing each paragraph a bit differently.

For example:

A plastic surgery/facial rejuvenation office would like to entice prospects and customers to try something new, using a “special offer”. Old school on hold would work one paragraph about the special into a laundry list of other paragraphs (hours, the facility, the dermatologist, the new this, the new that). Of course those are all good things, but if building business is the goal, then why only mention the promotions once? It’s a bit like playing Russian roulette with your most important message.

My preference would be to write 5-6 different paragraphs about the same promotion, but in the first paragraph, briefly mention the convenient hours for booking your new procedure at that special price. The next paragraph would indeed mention the new modern facility where you’ll be getting your new procedure done–at that special price! Then talk about the dermatologist who will be providing your new procedure–at that special price, and so on.

The repetitive message doesn’t get missed with any of your callers.

“But I don’t run specials,” you say. “I do want my callers to hear a variety of ideas; I’m okay with that.”

Yes, I understand that not all companies are alike, and your goal may not be as sales-driven as the example above. But keep this in mind: Hold time really is most effective for you when you answer the question, “What do I want my callers to do with the information they’re receiving while on hold?” Without a call to action, you simply have a dull brochure that’s all about you, not the caller.

Once you’ve decided what action your callers can take to receive maximum value, don’t bury it. Get it out front and repeat, repeat.

With the Easy On Hold Anytime Plan, you have the freedom to keep your message very targeted…and if you’re using one of our internet-load players, you can have us add or remove content based on specific dates which we program into your unit. Perfect for time-sensitive promotions.

Our scriptwriters are ready to help you bring a more targeted focus to your scripts. Just let us know, and we’ll be happy to help provide ideas.