We heard you loud and clear, all you I.T. and marketing folks (and my own tech team) who are tired of the hassles of conventional on hold message marketing equipment and software. And that’s why we developed hosted streaming architecture. We believe our message and music on hold streaming solution will clear up the major headaches you’ve been complaining about.
Top 5 Major Hassles
1. Glitchy, cumbersome internet-load units and software
If your marketing strategy includes on-hold marketing, such as time-sensitive sales, information, promotions, etc., the only way to really manage those start and stop dates, up to now, has been internet-connected devices that you plug into your network, and either manage the software yourself or hire it out to a vendor like Easy On Hold to manage your content for you.
But the ones we’ve sold to the public, and purchased and hosted for our own customers, have been difficult to use for many reasons. From hardware failures to outdated software that’s only compatible with Windows XP (!), we’ve spent precious time troubleshooting issues that are inherent in the systems themselves. We knew there had to be a more modern, easier way to provide a hands-free, multiple-location, granular scheduling method.
The new Easy On Hold message and music on hold streaming solution means your audio is no longer managed by clunky software and devices with quirky operating systems.
2. Having to handle files for a USB player or your phone system.
You’re busy and you may have more than one location you’re juggling. To continue to use basic players like USB music on hold players, or to load a file into the phone system every time there’s an update is not the best use of your time. Somebody has to load those files and it’s usually you.
If you currently use on-hold player devices, connected with an audio cable, replace them with our streaming player and architecture. The 2-Channel Business Audio System, made by Easy On Hold (designed and built in Michigan, USA) is programmed for you with a private URL. Every update is changed on your stream in real-time.
If you need files for your phone system and are using Asterisk, FreeSWITCH or OnSIP, you don’t need a player. Just take the unique URL we’ll create for you and load it into your account one time–all updates automatically update your message and music on hold stream in the future.
3. Boring 4-minute loops, the yawn factor of typical messages on hold.
One long four-minute track, interrupted by spoken content every 20-30 seconds has been the long-running approach to messages on hold. It’s a turnoff for professional marketers and especially your callers. Every time the loop starts over your callers realize they have been on hold a long time! So what if on hold sounded completely different?
Rather than one long music track, how about giving each announcement or paragraph its own music track that sounds different than the others on your channel? And what if, instead of repeating in the same pattern, the spots played back randomly so that the on hold experience was never the same twice for your callers. And, even better, what if you could dictate when certain announcements are heard–like your flu shot clinic ‘spot’ being heard more frequently than other topics, to be sure callers get the most valuable content? With your own customized music and message on hold stream, you’re able to schedule every announcement with results in mind. Or have us do it. It’s up to how hands-on you want to be.
4. Files start from the beginning on hosted VOIP systems.
VOIP is great until you realize that the music on hold part of the system can only start the file from the beginning every time you place a caller on hold. This has caused a lot of trouble for many companies whose brand demands a better on hold experience than that for their callers. We developed streaming compatibilities with Asterisk and with OnSIP, providing the user a URL that they load into their account. The streams play in real-time.
5. Lack of access for end users to manage their own playback schedules for each on hold spot and make changes in real time from anywhere.
Easy On Hold provides a unique login for each user to start, pause, and schedule their individual announcements for a custom, granular schedule. Users can also give certain announcements a higher frequency “weight” so they play more often than others in the stream. All changes happen immediately.
Message And Music On Hold Stream Test Available
Easy On Hold makes a test URL stream available for techs who would like to experiment. https and http mp3 streaming URLs are provided (no obligation registration required).
