What is the perception your callers have of the people who answer your phones? Is it a pleasant voice with a helpful greeting – the kind that will lead smoothly into the messages the caller will hear upon being placed on hold?   How do those callers feel about being placed on hold?  “No, don’t put me on hold to elevator music!” or “I will not listen to rap on the radio!” Click!  Not good. That “click” is one sound you do not want to hear.  Use the On Hold messaging from Express On Hold to inform, educate, entertain, even provide a call to action.

How frequently does any one caller ring in?  Is he or she put on hold each time?  You may want to think about how many times that caller is hearing the on hold messages you have playing currently.  Is it often enough that he has them memorized, is getting annoyed with having to hear them, and is hoping that he does not have to be placed on hold again.  “If I hear that message one more time, I am going to hang up and call Brand X”.  Not much enhancement to your bottom line from that response, is there?  Think about your caller patterns.

Blogger Jennifer Blanchard writes that "crafting a message for Twitter requires you to...discover a better, clearer and more concise way to say what you want to say." After all, when you only have 140 characters to make your point you need to choose your words very carefully.

Honing that skill is also important for writing effective on hold messaging copy. When you're economical with your words, but still able to paint a picture or generate interest or reach people emotionally, you're on the right path to writing better marketing copy. Read "How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer" on Copyblogger. 

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Are you writing your own on hold messaging? Good for you, ol’ chum or chumette.

But here’s a tip: Keep it brief.

We’ve noticed that a lot of folks try to say a little too much in each message. Maybe they're thinking “We need to tell our customers about everything we sell.” The problem is callers won’t retain any of the information you provide if you give them too much to think about.

Consider this formula:

• Choose three or four products you want to promote on hold.

• Write two or three short messages about each of those four products. Every message should be only two to three sentences, or 15 seconds max.  

• Focus on a different aspect of the product in each message. For instance, message #1 might list benefits; message #2 could tout the product’s low price; and message #3 may stress its unique warranty. Or present the same information in different ways, first by telling how the product fulfills a need or solves a problem, then through the words of a customer’s testimonial, and then by using statistics.

• Arrange the messages in the script so that the four products are mentioned in a rotating order. (Product #1, product #2, product #3, product #4, repeat.)

Writing several shorter messages about a small number of products and then dispersing those messages evenly throughout the script will ensure that more of your callers hear about each product, and will better the odds of them remembering - and responding to - your most important points.

Click here for more copywriting tips. If you’d still like help with your on hold messaging copy, let us know. Packages 3, 4, 7 & 8 include copy proofing and editing.

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