What Do They Want to Hear?

There’s no question that customer feedback is a great way to improve and better shape the consumer experience. What better time than the approach of a new year to measure how your customers are responding to their on-hold messaging experience and make changes to your strategy?

What are your customers saying?
This is a great way to gauge the effectiveness of your current message components, including content, offers, and music. There are many ways to go about measuring this that are as basic as having your customer service team ask about your customers’ on-hold experience during their call. If your company conducts any kind of survey program—whether it’s specific to your on-hold messaging or just a quick question at the end of an overall customer service survey—that’s a great way to gather feedback. It can also be as upfront as taking to your social media channels and asking your fans if there was anything that struck them about their on-hold experience.

What are your customers doing?
Evaluate and track how your customers are responding to content in your current on-hold messages. Are they excited about anything in particular that they then ask about on the call? Are they redeeming any specific on-hold offers?

Don’t take it personally
If you’re noticing a trend in the responses, see it as an opportunity to improve and get more out of your on-hold messages. Many components, including your customers’ demographics and their preferences could play a big part in their feedback. It may also boil down to simplifying your content or any industry jargon used.

All of these components may leave you wondering which direction to turn to craft an appropriate on-hold messaging experience. The team at America On Hold can help you assess your current messages and assist in developing marketing efforts that better addresses your customers’ needs.

Year-end Checklist: Integrate Your Marketing with On-hold Messages

As the year winds down, it’s a great time to look at project lists and consider what hasn’t been crossed off. Sometimes it’s even worth revisiting a goal list to see what has been accomplished this year to gauge productivity and help shape the next year. For many companies—especially small businesses—some projects seem too time intensive or too expensive. Marketing may fall into that category, and it may have been something you’ve neglected to create or integrate in 2012. But it’s not too late to integrate your marketing with on-hold messages before the year ends.

Increase Your Bottom Line

One of the great things to remember about the team at America On Hold is that we can help you cross that item off your to-do list and start 2013 with a new tool in your sales and marketing kit. By taking advantage of customizing your customers’ on-hold experience, you increase your brand awareness, retain more customers, and capitalize on another advertising opportunity. All of these factors combine to increase your sales.

Make It Easy for Yourself

Without help, this process can be overwhelming or even seem impossible. What messages do you share? How do you manage the technology? By handing this task over to America On Hold, all of the steps needed to create your on-hold messages are thoroughly handled by our team, from competitive market research to learning more about your company. Our team then uses all of that information to craft an appropriate messaging experience for your clients, with your expert help determining the correct components. The entire America On Hold process from start to finish only takes five business days, and that’s without any disruption to your current phone system for set up.

It’s really as easy as that to quickly and effectively cross a project off your list before the year is even over. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you get integrate your marketing with on-hold messages. If you sign up by December 31, we’ll even give you two months free! The only question now is: What are you waiting for?

Surviving a Holiday Season Technology Crash

‘Tis the season! For many companies, this specifically means gearing up for the busy end-of year retail season. In that flurry of activity, one thing that can spell disaster during a critical time is a technology failure. The last thing any business wants is a slow website or a breakdown of online purchasing capabilities.

While on-hold messages can’t fix a website, this would be a great time to use it as a courtesy resource to help keep customers informed during a less-than-ideal experience. Not only will your customers appreciate the communication during this time but so will your customer service team responding to the influx of frustrated callers.

Here are a few ways that using your on-hold messages to mention the technology glitch can help salvage the holiday shopping season until systems are up and running again.

• With an online system down, customers may panic that the problem is their credit card or computer. Keeping them informed will eliminate any panic and let them know it’s a universal problem affecting all customers.
• By assuring customers that the customer service team would be happy to assist with placing phone orders during this time, an alternative shopping option is provided and decreases chances that the customer will go elsewhere.
• Forewarning callers that wait times to speak with a representative are longer due to the technology glitch is a great way to keep teams internally cool as they field calls from customers.

While no one is immune to technology issues, an up-front communication approach shows that your team is working to address the problem in a timely manner and upholds your business’ credibility.

Did you know that we can create an on-hold message campaign for you to put in place in the event of systems issues? Have a backup plan ready; contact us to maintain the high level of service your customers expect.