Many businesses receive as many as 100 calls a day or more. Some medium-sized companies put callers on hold for over 17 hours each month – this number does not include help lines and call centres. 70 percent of those calls are placed on hold for an average of 90 seconds. A staggering 90 percent of callers hang up within 40 seconds if “on hold” means dead silence. And 34 percent of those who hang up never call back. Yikes.
On-hold marketing reduces hang-ups by 77 percent, because instead of silence, callers hear marketing messages. It increases telephone on-hold time as much as 230 percent. A full 88 percent of callers say they prefer an on-hold message to music or silence. Yes, that’s right, they would rather hear and ad instead of dead air or a pan flute solo by Zamfir. Best of all, 19 percent of callers take action and buy something when they hear a powerful marketing message while on hold.
Interesting numbers for sure. Nobody that I know likes being put on hold, so give them something to listen to. It might even generate at sale or two.