Way back in 2014, Ring Central, a popular “hosted VoIP” business phone service provider, began working with Easy On Hold® to provide properly licensed music for Ring Central users. Ring Central has music you can choose from their platform but also allows users to upload custom content. As the Music On Hold Experts™, we are able to offer you some time-saving advice that can make your hold-time work harder. Here are our Top 5 Tips for Ring Central Music On Hold.
Tip #1: Customize
First, let’s see what Ring Central offers. Log in to your account to find the standard music on hold background tracks. The goal of the music options is to allow callers to hear some kind of music that will sound “OK” on mobile phones. Easy On Hold® and Ring Central worked hard to come up with hold music options that would distort less when carried over cell towers. The standard Ring Central music on hold choices will not help maintain callers or build your business but can be a placeholder while you get custom music and messages produced by Easy On Hold.
Learn about choosing music or messages for your callers to hear while holding.
Studies consistently prove that callers will hang up after a minute or two on hold. When silence is replaced with music, callers still hang up in roughly the same amount of time. So music alone is not effective for keeping callers on the line.
Many contact centers measure hang-ups in a metric known as “call abandonment rate”.
What does work? Custom messages
Customized voice messages. When callers hear something that is relevant, some words that convince them you actually care about them, they stay on hold up to 75% longer.
Almost 70 percent of the students who heard wait music alone hung up before their call was answered, and adding apologies only brought down the call-abandonment rate to 67 percent. In comparison, just 36 percent of the callers who received information about their progress in line hung up. (American Psychological Association, 2007)
In addition to reducing hang-ups, voiced messages can accomplish many other goals:
- Inform callers about updates (such as safety updates, new products, procedures, and steps your organization is taking to help customers.
- Information that answers questions you anticipate will satisfy the caller. Often that caller will disconnect. This creates some relief for your call center agents.
- The resources your organization has that can more fully engage the caller should be introduced to callers waiting on hold.
- Multichannel promotions can be connected to the customer at the phone-on-hold point of contact. For example, something you have on social media, online applications, and community involvement.
How To Get Ring Central Music On Hold Messages
You may request customized music on hold messages recordings that work with your Ring Central phone system from Easy On Hold. Your hold music and message strategy session is brief, free, and informs you about the options you have (some you may not have thought of).
How To Load Ring Central Music On Hold
- Open Settings > Screening, Greeting, & Hold Music > User Hours
- Below Hold Music, select Enable, then click Edit.
- Click the Set Audio drop-down list.
- Select custom.
- Choose Browse then upload the WAV or MP3 of your hold music.
- Click Done.
- Save.
According to the Ring Central website.
Tip #2: Always use only licensed music
At one point Ring Central made a bad suggestion in their article, Use Your Own Music For Music On Hold. They actually suggested loading your favorite music as the hold background.
Hold on! Ring Central is missing one very important piece of information: You must not use music for which you do not hold a performance license. Refer to our article, Music On Hold Licensing No Joke. The use of music on your telephone system constitutes a rebroadcast and therefore requires a music performance license. Fines are steep if music licensing groups such as ASCAP, BMI, and the record labels catch up with you.
Best Ring Central Music On Hold Options
Where does hold music come from, anyway? Companies like Easy On Hold® maintain license agreements with music publishers. For example, the Universal Music Publishing Company is the world’s largest publisher of music for film, tv, video, etc. You can hear music on hold samples and choose your favorites, using the music selection service from Easy On Hold®.
Can I Play Hit Music On My Ring Central Hold Button?
The short answer is no. Performance rights and other copyrights protect composers, publishers, and artists from businesses using their music without a license. Ring Central requires users to load an audio file onto their platform for callers to hear. If you do that without the complete complement of licenses and agreements in place (with composers, publishers, and the recording label) you are in serious violation of the law. Licensing a popular song for the hold button can be extremely expensive and difficult.
Tip #3: Change The Music And Messages Often
Why should you change the phone-on-hold content often? On the Ring Central platform, hold music plays from the beginning of the file every time a caller is placed on hold. This means if your hold times are brief (about a minute), callers will hear only the first minute of your on-hold audio file. If your caller is placed on hold more than once in the course of a phone call, she will hear the exact same 30 seconds of audio. Consider having multiple voiced messages recorded, then rearranged so callers can have variety, as you change the audio file every week or so.
Tip #4: Try The New Transitions Product
Easy On Hold® has introduced Transitions, a type of music on hold that separates the voice from the music. This makes your messages on hold sound clearer.
One of the reasons music on hold sounds distorted on phones is that the audio processing of phone-call audio is attempting to enhance the sound of the human voice and de-emphasize background noise. Therefore music (which is not voice) becomes electronically minimized by the phone system. Further, music on mobile phones is distorted by noise-canceling algorithms.
Learn even more about how you can make music on hold sound better on your VoIP phone platform.
The audio stream below is a demonstration of Transitions. Try a fresh approach that is being enjoyed by many organizations right now!
Tip #5: Change Platforms and Start Streaming
More and more phone platforms are updating to integrate the streaming music on hold methods pioneered by Easy On Hold in 2013. The stream solves many problems:
- Scheduling automation allows high-value topics to be delivered with pinpoint timing. Relevant information reduces call abandonment and increases customer engagement.
- Changes are heard immediately. You’ll never wonder when topics will be played, or if they were programmed at all.
- Dayparting, meaning “good morning” and “good afternoon” phrases surprise and delight callers. Unexpected positive moments activate the brain’s pleasure center.
- The predictable “audio loop” makes hold times feel longer than they really are. Instead, streaming topics are played randomly.
- Easily manage content at multiple locations using any browser or device.
- All of your topics are not of equal importance, so Easy On Hold® streaming messages on hold system lets you set priority ratings for each topic. Your high-value, time-sensitive messages are heard more often.
- Messages are changed in the stream, not by handling files. The audio content no longer passes through your hands. In some cases, devices will no longer be required, reducing maintenance.
- Streams automate start and stop dates of each on-hold topic. No more out-of-date audio files being left on the system.
- Like it or not, someone at your company is responsible for the liability of licensing the content that is heard on your phones. Easy On Hold® assumes that responsibility.
- Bandwidth consumption is just 0.025 GB/hr. for the mono 128kbps stream (less than one employee listening to Pandora®).
- Streams provide real data that can be used in implementation and troubleshooting.
- Once installed, the URL does not change. No further maintenance is required.
With music constantly changing and timely topics blending in at just the right times, callers hear a fresh sound far superior to the common on-hold audio loop.
Easy On Hold
How to stream music on hold? Look into the many platforms that offer streaming music on hold from Easy On Hold.
Summary
- Playing music for callers requires a proper license.
- It is illegal to upload your own music as Ring Central Music On hold.
- Custom-voiced messages improve caller retention by up to 75%.
- Using a voice-only presentation (with short music transitions between announcements) sounds clear on phones. In fact, we call it “Transitions.”
- The benefits of streaming music on hold may appeal to you. Search for other providers that can integrate with streaming music on hold.
