Among other goals of advertising & messages on hold, many experts agree that there are only three main objectives– sales, niche authority and customer loyalty.
And if you’re a discerning entrepreneur or marketer, you would certainly want to focus on these three goals to ensure your brand would sell, whether its services or products.
Of course, you can opt for traditional techniques such as TV advertising and print ads. But if you like to go out of the ordinary, there are also other strategies that are equally worth the effort and investment. These include online techniques (e.g., social media marketing, B2B strategies, SEO and affiliate marketing) and on-hold messages.
Several researchers also point out that maximizing on-hold messages is one of the most underrated advertising types. Many business owners have wasted seconds, if not minutes, by not being able to make good use of the time when callers are waiting for their calls to be taken.
Why Should You Maximize Your Hold Message?
Contrary to popular practice, what could otherwise be a minute or two of deadly silence can be turned into an opportunity to make your sales pitches, company updates and other strategies to build positive interaction with customers.
And the best thing is, this can be applied to all sorts of companies who take direct calls from people, regardless of whatever industry they’re into (e.g. manufacturing, customer service, design or hospitality).
So how exactly can you leverage that extra minute or seconds when your customers are waiting for you to attend to them? Many business experts suggest that the following are the three best ways you can do while holding up your callers:
1. Make Sales Pitches
Do you like to make more sales? If you do, it would be a practical move to hire a voice-over specialist to record your sales pitches. You can then plug these while your customers are waiting for you.
Quick tip: Just make sure your pitches are concise, short and engaging to ensure it will attract callers even in a short space of time.Think about how much money you can make if you’re able to sell your products automatically and passively. Probably, 5 to 10% more than your usual monthly figures? This difference may seem small, but come to think of it, having this increase would mean a lot to your overall performance.
2. Introduce New Brands
Are you planning to release new products? You can use your on-hold time to introduce your callers to your new products, instead of just letting these precious minutes go into a deadly, boring and useless silence.
If you’re a mobile phone manufacturing company, for instance, and you have a new model soon to be released on the market, you can talk about your new product. Who knows the caller might be interested in buying one, instead of merely purchasing spare parts, which may be his or her intention for calling.
3. Invite Customers To Participate In Your Events
Do you have upcoming company events that you would like your customers to join? If so, you can share the details of your activity – be it a Halloween party, Christmas celebration, trade fair or conference – through your on-hold messages.
Doing this is a more economical choice than spending money for printed adverts like flyers and brochures, which you can also use depending on your preferences.
By making sure you’ve integrated these three tasks as you customize your on-hold messages, you’ll be able to keep your callers, instead of just letting them listen to awful ding dong music.
Factors To Consider When Making Messages On Hold
But before you start, there are a few important factors to bear in mind when designing recorded messages. These are the following:
1. The Caller’s Needs
Anticipate what your callers need to ensure you’re making the right messages that appeal to their interests. You should also consider the fact that customers may already have complaints, and to be put on hold for a long time can irritate them even more.
Quick tip: To ensure you’re giving useful messages, you should refer to your statistics, get to know the most common issues and queries people call you for; these may include technical support or questions about your services. This can help let the minutes pass pleasantly without frustrating your callers.
2. Your Company’s Origins, Services or Products
Make sure your messages can translate into sales or other profit-generating outcomes. Specifically, the best types to talk about would be your upcoming events, product launches and sales periods.
You can also talk about the history of your company, where it started and who founded the organization. Stories about your advocacies, affiliated groups and corporate social responsibility initiatives are also nice ones to tell along with testimonials from current happy customers.
3. Technical Factors
See to it that the messages are audible, informative and interesting. Listen to it several times across different devices (e.g. mobile phone and land line phones) to ensure its compatibility.
Quick tip: Contact a reliable voice-over specialist – someone with a good voice the callers can’t help but listen to. Be brief and concise with the content to deliver information fast and easy.
Apart from these, you might also like to have a background on how on-hold messaging operates and how to find a reliable service provider.
So, if you’re ready to have custom-designed on-hold messages for your On Hold system, you can opt for the services offered here at Smart On Hold Options to ensure top-quality service – guaranteed!