branding

Please Leave A Message After The…

“Hey, how you doin? Sorry you can’t get through, why don’t you leave your name, and your number and I’ll get back to you”

I love Voicemail. One of my favourite songs of all time was about leaving a message and one of the funniest Seinfeld moments of all time was also centred around this ingenious bit of technology. I personally am in the Costanza camp of shamelessly screening a majority of my personal calls so I’m forever grateful for that little bit extra time my voicemail allows me.

Voicemail is nothing new, it’s been around for a long while now but most people don’t realise it’s as powerful a tool for customer service as your On Hold is. Think about it, when else do you get to directly communicate with your customers without ACTUALLY communicating with your customers. And when else do you get a red hot sales lead land smack bang in your lap when someone leaves their details after the tone? Never. So it makes sense to make the most out of this simple customer service opportunity.

Here are some of the Messages On Hold Copywriting Team’s How Not To Make Your Voicemail Sound Bad and Waste Everyone’s Time tips.

Don’t Be Boring

Hello, you’ve called whatever business this is. We’re not here because it’s not working hours. Leave a message and we’ll probably get back to you eventually.

Sure I’ll leave a message, once I pull myself out of the coma that Voicemail recording put me into. You WANT your callers to leave a message, you WANT to get back to them, so let them know. Don’t be desperate, but a little excitement and an assurance of when you will actually return the call never hurt anybody.

Don’t Waste The Opportunity

Your callers are going to listen to the whole Voicemail to leave a message so let them know a bit extra about your business while you’ve got them. Even if they’re like me and they hate leaving Voicemails, give them your email address/website/Facebook page and encourage them to get in touch that way. If someone’s taken the time to pick up the phone and call you, you may as well ensure they get in touch.

Don’t Drop The Ball with your Branding…

You’ve spent the time crafting a great corporate image for your business, so let that image shine through with your Voicemails. Tell your callers proudly who they’ve called so they can be sure their message is going to get through to the right company.  Think about what information your clients are actually going to need outside of your business hours. Will they need alternative? will they need directions to your business? Will they simply need to know when you’re going to be open next? Know your clients as well as your own branding; you never know who’s going to be leaving a message.

I’ll leave you with a hilarious yet clever of Kramer’s Movie Phone IVR – he’s even worked in a short marketing message at the beginning!

– Sophie

Use The (Weak) Force!

“I just saw what we spent on marketing in the last quarter, show me some results now!”

You want to see results and understandably so. You just spent a significant portion of your budget on marketing, money that could’ve been spent on upgrading your I.T. or replacing those uncomfortable chairs in the office.

Well, it’s unlikely you’re going to see those results.

It may seem like I should start writing my own resignation letter… or that my superiors are getting ready to inform me of ‘structural changes within the company’ – but follow this train of thought for a second.

People, however, are not machines predictably responding to your ‘inputs’ – your increase in marketing spend may not have a proportional and quantifiable result.  But that doesn’t mean wasted marketing dollars.  Your marketing efforts may have achieved underlying psychological results that will be extremely important at purchase time… whenever that may be.

Some like to believe that marketing is a strong force – ‘You will hear my message, be convinced and purchase my widget!’ This is not the case. If it were, we’d all be voting for the political party that figured it out. We had a hung parliament last election, so I could probably say something about our current Prime Minister and there’d be a 50% chance you’d disagree.the-force-is-strong

Instead, marketing is a weak force. Why on earth did you spend all that money on a weak force? Because marketing works as a weak force. Consumers enter an information-laden lifeworld, filled with their own complex personalities and perspectives. It is marketing’s job to gently niggle in a message about your business into that lifeworld. Then, when the stars almost align, if the consumer knows what your company does, knows that you’ll do it reliably and, hey, thinks your company is ‘a good bloke’… you’ll get a purchase.

Skimp on marketing at your own peril. You have competitors engaging in this exact same process. Instead, make marketing work as a weak force:

● engage then sell

● aim for long-term market goals instead of sales spikes

● and communicate one thing at one time.

That last point is perhaps the most pertinent. As a copywriter for Messages On Hold, I sometimes speak with clients that wish to include a lot of information in a single message. I understand, you want to get your money’s worth, but a complex message that’s hard to remember is worthless compared to a simple message that sticks. If it’s not easy, you’ve lost them.

It may feel like a leap, but spend as much time and money as you can to keep your business in the minds of your target consumers (not on hammering home information), then at purchase time… you might just win out over the competition.

– Jakub

Good Brands Gone Bad

I had a terrible experience with a great company I admire recently. It was worse than the lukewarm coffee I drank the other day, or that time I had to wait for hours at Denpasar airport, because I’ve come to expect that from dodgy delis and Indonesian immigration. This experience shocked me because of my high expectations.

Recently the luxury high-end bridal designer Vera Wang started charging customers in her Shanghai store 3,000 Yuan (approximately AU$500) just for the honour of trying on her gowns. If the bride-to-be ends up buying one of the iconic dresses the fee is deducted from the final price, but I don’t think that lessens the sting.

One bad apple ruins the bunch.

One bad apple ruins the bunch.

Vera says the fee was imposed to protect the copyright of her designs. This is a valid concern. But there has to be a better way to do it than by undermining the Vera Wang brand by stinging and disappointing potential customers. Consumers expect more from a luxury brand.

If you have a great reputation, it’s important not to overlook the finer details. I was on hold for a solid fifteen minutes for an international electronics company. Their caller experience was a carefully crafted combination of shrieking tones and distorted ‘popular music’. This took me by complete surprise. Their products are beautiful and intuitive, their customer service is normally genius and their stores are spacious and stunning like their products. But gee wizz, do they really drop the ball when it comes to the telephone!

If you’ve worked hard to build a great reputation and rapport with your customers, don’t let it be tarnished by a bad experience that is so easily avoided. In this instance the tech company in questions really should have taken control of their phone image.

Just as you wouldn’t allow someone in your company to be rude to your customers, don’t let your Caller Experience tarnish your reputation. Remember, it can take 20 years to earn a good reputation, but just two minutes on hold listening to high-pitched chimes to ruin it.

– Emily

The Tills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music

More and more businesses are realising that having the right music playing in their retail space can make shoppers linger longer and purchase more. But can it really have an effect on someone over the phone? The answer may surprise you.

TasteInMusic

A lot of thought and research goes into selecting the right tracks to play to customers in retail environments – the same amount of energy should go into selecting music to play to waiting callers.

No matter how great your taste in music may be, it may vary wildly from what your target market listens to. Even if you go middle of the road and play something that’s as inoffensive as possible (commonly referred to as “light and easy” music) you’ll never be able to please one hundred percent of the people, one hundred percent of the time. Savvy business owners accept this fact. They also realise they need to dig deeper and ask themselves a few creative questions in order to find out what music will keep callers not only holding for longer, but willing to spend more.

If you’re in the same boat, you might ask yourself:

● What do my customers listen to?

Your target audience may prefer music that’s very different to your personal preference.

● What do I want them to think and feel about my business?

Do you want them to think you’re a big time corporate outfit or energetic & young.

● What do you want them to do?

Do you want them to stay on the phone until you can reach them, etc.

When a new client comes on board with us, the Creative Coordinator arranges a phone consultation between the client and one of our copywriters. This phone consultation is key in determining what will make their audio marketing effective.  During the conversation, the writer will focus on four key areas: tone, content, voices and music.

Now some customers have a good idea of what kind of music will suit their brand and listeners. Others are happy for our expert team to recommend tracks. Recently the CEO of a commercial steel barn manufacturer sent us his latest radio ads featuring country-style acoustic guitars. We browsed our extensive music library (1600+ tracks and counting!) for background music tracks to match the radio ads, and then made recommendations which the client happily accepted.

Sometimes, determining which music is right goes much deeper than simply ‘matching’ tracks. A study conducted by Milliman (1982) exposed restaurant patrons to fast (90BPM or higher) and slow tempo music. Milliman observed that individuals tended to stay longer when listening to the slow tempo tracks compared with the fast tempo alternative.

On Hold, however, we’ve found mid-tempo music (approximately 100BPM) to be most effective at keeping callers happier to hold longer. Our ambient music tracks, which range from 60- right up to 130BPM, are produced in-house by The Groove Gallery. What makes these tracks unique is that they’re composed specifically to comfort listeners, not distract them. Another few things to consider, in addition to BPM, when choosing the right music tracks is what your callers’ average wait time is and what their music preference might be.

To bring us back full circle, it’s no longer satisfactory to simply play radio or CDs to waiting callers. There is a real science behind the music you select, and those businesses that invest a little time and thought into what they expose their listeners to bank the benefits.

– Lachy

Let’s Chat About Chatting

Interacting with customers online is a given in business these days.  But turning those interactions into sales?  That’s a whole new kettle of fish.

Messages On Hold has its own Facebook page, but it’s not quite a sales tool. Sure, we can field questions from current and potential customers there, but it’s more a branding exercise. It allows us to connect with people in a relaxed, social manner and show a more playful side of the company.

So we could interact with prospects in a purely sales-centric, low-pressure environment, we installed a chat application on our website. This allows web browsers to navigate our site at their own pace and, if they want to ask us something about a product, it’s as easy as clicking on the chat icon and having a real-time conversation with one of the sales team.

Chat With Us!

The benefits of having a chat application on our site are two-fold. It allows our sales people to multi-task: chatting with several clients at once or even fielding email enquiries whilst a chat session is in progress. It also breaks down that fear some people have about picking up a phone and being locked in a sales conversation. Perhaps the biggest benefit of all is the fact you can connect instantly with a prospect while they’re pumped and interested in your products.

There are plenty of ways to encourage online interaction from your target market, and installing a live chat application is just one of them.  You can start by setting up a Facebook page to open a casual dialogue with customers and prospects.  Twitter is another simple, streamlined way of prompting communication from customers.  The most important thing is to get something underway.

To learn more about the benefits of live chat applications, check out this useful article.

– Lachy

Messages On Hold: Steroids for VoIP Systems

In April we posted here on what it takes to create a fantastic-looking and highly-effective web video. Today I’d like to share with you the finished product.

voip

As per usual, Messages On Hold MD Kym Illman stars in our latest video production.

There’s no denying VoIP phone systems are becoming more and more popular. In fact, we encourage all our clients to make the switch from traditional PABX system to VoIP because not only are they easier to manage, they also provide our clients with more opportunities to reinforce their brand image and market to their callers.

That’s because unlike a traditional PABX or commander phone system, which requires additional hardware, select VoIP systems are capable of playing:
• A welcome message
• Menu prompts
• Voicemail messages
• After hours message
• and more

Until recently, a client of 5 years had been playing On Hold messages through one of our digital replay units connected to their PABX phone system. When they told us that they were beginning to outgrow their system and considering alternatives, we advised them that a VoIP system would allow them to manage their inbound call traffic much more effectively and directed them to watch our video on YouTube. (It’s since been uploaded onto our homepage and downloads page.)

Although many businesses make the mistake of recording the audio themselves, our client understood from watching our videos that their welcome message and menu prompts were hugely effective at shaping callers perceptions. They also didn’t want to run the risk of sub-par recordings compromising the effectiveness of their professional On Hold messages. So they had us script, voice and mix their phone greeting, voice prompts and after hours recordings instead.

If you have a question about VoIP and how to leverage it to connect with callers and support your sales teams, post your question on our Facebook page or contact us today.

– Lachy

Going Viral

It’s that time of year where we head to our local GP for our flu vaccines, stock up on vitamin C and three ply tissues and get ready for the onslaught of colds and flues that will undoubtedly sweep through our workplaces. Just like these viruses, viral videos spread quickly and of their own accord, which makes them excellent marketing vehicles for those with small budgets.

Here at Messages On Hold we’ve enjoyed great success with viral marketing.Frame Your Mate, World’s Greatest Business Mind, Australia 2010 Electionand Warnie’s Words of Wisdom have literally amassed millions of views. Naturally, this is great for our branding and getting our name out there. But you don’t need millions of views for your viral video to be ranked a huge success.

According to the article Secret Sauce: What Does It Take to Create a Viral Video? your viral video needs just 10,000 views to be classed as a grade A. Interestingly, it’s not just the number of views that classes a video as viral, but how quickly and easily it gets shared. For other insights, and some great tips on coming up with catchy concepts for videos that go ‘viral’, check it out here.

And finally, if you really want your video to spread in the time it takes to say ‘cold and flu tablets’, check out our efforts under the heading “Viral Videos”here.

Do You Come Here Often?

What does online dating have to do with On Hold messaging? At first glance, not a lot. But if you give it a little more thought they have a lot to do with one and other.

The most important parallel is that you’re essentially selling yourself.

To avoid judgment (and protect my fragile ego) let’s say a friend of mine has used online dating in the past – and with great success. One thing he noticed on people’s profiles is that so many of them state the obvious, such as “love living life to the fullest” and “enjoys laughing”. Really? I’d like to know someone who finds laughing a chore. The point is these throwaway lines do nothing to engage and persuade a potential suitor.

Just like filling out an online profile, your On Hold production (or any other communication for that matter) should be engaging. Instead of saying “We value your call” or “Thanks for holding” why not tell your callers a tasteful joke, offer some industry insight, or reward them with 5% off for mentioning a certain codeword. They’ll feel happy and rewarded for holding. And you get to endear your company to them.

So, how will you inject your company’s personality into your next communication? Let us know what you come up with!

– Lachy

Save The Date!

Ever wonder what happens when you give a one-man-marketing-machine a camera and some editing software? The answer is Kym Illman’s Mastering Marketing online videos!

This short video series Kym will focus on emerging trends for new ideas, dissect clever and innovative marketing strategies and offer you hints & tips that you can implement in your business right away. The first of this video series will be uploaded soon so check back here next Friday to find out more.

Don’t Use That Tone With Me!

Do you ever think about what you sound like on the phone? If you’re like most people, you have a completely different phone voice than you do in regular conversation. Why is that?

The fact is most of us do it subconsciously. We’re programmed to switch off our personality and go into corporate mode when the phone rings at work. People are cautious about being themselves in fear of offending their callers.

But the truth is people love personality. In fact, it instantly creates a rapport with your caller and often leads to a relaxed and engaging interaction. When you’re passionate about your business, it becomes infectious and this is one of the best promotional tools there is. And it’s free!

So next time your phone rings at work take a breath and think about the following:
• Break out of the traditional corporate tone that’s dull & monotonous.
• Imagine you’re talking to your friend. Your relaxed and conversational tone will carry across to the caller.
• Be memorable. When asked things questions like ‘how are you’, don’t reply with the usual ‘good thanks’ be different, people love it!
• If you’re known for your sense of humour, use it. Humour is the best way to relax a conversation.

And don’t just change your tone when you answer calls; carry it through to your recorded messages. Injecting your own personality adds credibility to your messages; you’re instantly engaging the caller and getting them in a more receptive mood.

So take a minute to think about your phone tone, it’s something you can change quickly and easily and the results will surprise you. And if you need a hand injecting a bit in life into your messages, call 1800 637 724 (or +61 8 9260 4444).

– Dave Roberts