Sometimes your marketing consultant needs to be brutally blunt with you, in order to help you see what your customers are seeing. Here’s what a good marketing consultant would say about using the radio for an on-hold program: it is killing your business!
- Radio on hold introduces doubt in your customer’s mind. Callers need to know you are the professionals you claim to be. You need to demonstrate that you have taken care of every detail. All seems well until you put them on hold and they hear the radio. They wonder, “Is this the best the ‘experts’ can do? I wonder if I can trust them 100%. They took a shortcut. In what other ways do they take shortcuts?” Use hold time to convince your buyer that calling you was the right decision, not a mistake.
- Radio on hold annoys your customers. Your caller is looking for advice, information, help… and get placed on hold. Perhaps this hold time is inevitable, but it is still unwelcome in the mind of your caller. To make matters worse, you force the caller to hear an advertisement for used cars. What a jarring circumstance! What a disconnect! What a negative impression to leave with your caller. Use hold time to connect with and reassure your buyer.
- Radio on hold offends your callers. Let’s take the annoyance factor one step further. Suppose the radio is playing an “inappropriate” song (the airwaves are full of profanity). Perhaps the caller hears a disturbing news story. The radio content is completely out of your control. Use hold time to give your buyer a ‘safe place to come to’ in every aspect of dealing with your company.
If we ask, “Do you want your callers to know they’re working with a reliable company?” you would say yes. Do you mean it? Prove it. Bluntly put, radio on hold is a business-killer. Knock it off.
