Is Your Caller Important To You?

The worst recorded words you can hear over the phone are; “Thank you for holding, your call is important to us. One of our operators will be with you shortly”. The first time you hear it you believe it. “Why would this lovely voice lie to me?” As time goes on you realise that in your heart of hearts they will not be with you shortly. The tell tale signs appear; you might put the phone on speaker, you go on the computer, maybe turn on the TV because you to know ‘shortly’ is a relative term.your-call-is-important

In our Copywriting Department we shudder at the phrase – knowing full well that it does the complete opposite of what it is supposed to do. It does not put the caller at ease, especially when they hear it multiple times. In fact, it reminds the caller that they’re caught in ‘on hold purgatory’ and makes their wait time seem longer.

When a client requests a generic courtesy message in their on hold production, we remind them that doing so has the opposite effect. We remind them that it’s much wiser to inform callers of the new services available at the company, encourage the caller to like a Facebook page or check out the website. After all, the longer a caller stays on hold, the less the courtesy message sounds reassuring and the more it begins to sound like a taunt!

In an ideal world your callers would only be on hold long enough to hear a few messages, but for any number of reasons this isn’t always the case. It’s important in these situations to entertain and educate the caller with fun, interesting and informative messages. You might even like to let them know alternative ways of contacting your company. The objective is to take your caller’s mind off the wait and tell them how you can in fact assist them.

Thank you for reading this blog, your time is important to us.

(See! Even when it is genuine it rarely comes across that way!)

– Emily

2 thoughts on “Is Your Caller Important To You?

  1. Trina says:

    I agree with you. A generic message only emphasises what the customer is hoping the company wouldn’t do, such as putting them on hold for 20 minutes. I’ve had several experiences that really tried my patience with the company, but hopefully, they’d get your tip and change their message on hold the way you’ve advised them to.

  2. We hope! Help us spread the word Trina 🙂

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