Are Your On Hold Callers Captive or Volatile

Are Your On Hold Callers Captive or Volatile?

One of the worst things you can do is not placing any thought towards the angle that your on hold messages take. By doing this, you’re essentially shooting in the dark. Your on hold marketing program not only becomes useless, but you won’t even know if and when you hit your target. The more effective way of creating a proper on hold marketing program is to have a definite goal, and to make sure that you can measure its success.

The Need for Crucial On Hold Metrics

When you are trying to improve your on hold script, the first thing you need to do is to have an accurate idea of what’s currently going on with your on hold situation. That’s why you need metrics, which are measurable statistics you can use. You can also use these metrics as a way to measure whether or not your new on hold messages are more effective than the previous one.

You need several types of metrics to extract an accurate picture of your situation. You need to know how many callers your company receives per day and per week. Then you need to know how many callers hung up right away when you put them on hold, and how many stayed on the line until they were able to obtain the information they wanted. Finally, you need to know the average time spent by those who stayed on the line but eventually gave up.

Defining Captive and Volatile On Hold Callers

There are generally 3 kinds of on hold callers:

  1. One is called captive callers, because they tend to stay on the line no matter what. They are essentially your captives, so to speak. That’s because they really need some information or assistance from you, and they don’t have any other option to get the information they need. That means that, no matter how annoying or ineffective your on hold script may be, they will not hang up. It doesn’t mean your script and recording should be rubbish though!
  2. Another type of on hold caller are the volatile callers. These are the people who really hate being kept on hold. Once they realise that they have to be placed on hold, they will just hang up immediately. For these people, even the perfect on hold script is useless.
  3. The third type of on hold callers are those who hang up after being on hold for a while. There are basically two reasons for this. Either they don’t like what they’re hearing while they’re put on hold, or they think that they can’t wait too long because what they are seeking isn’t really important.

It’s the first and third group of callers which you have to monitor carefully, because that’s the group that will be more affected by your on hold marketing message. The goal is to increase the number of people who stay on the line, so that you can pitch to them what you want to advertise. By checking the metrics, you can then have a clearer idea of how to tailor your messages to achieve more positive outcome for your business.

Share this post

Scroll to Top