The Science Behind On Hold & In Store Music

The Science Behind On Hold & In Store Music

The modern world and all of its complexities have doomed much of the common man’s time into the wastebasket of necessary (and unnecessary) waiting. Statistics on consumers estimate that people will spend around one and one-fifth of a year of their entire life at the telephone, on hold.

Most commercial companies now employ on hold music, and the necessity of calling them (for they are, after all, necessary utilities such as the phone company, the electric company, and many other companies offering important products and services) have destined the average man to waste more than a year of his life waiting on hold while having to listen to music ranging from the classical to new age experimental tunes. Alternately, pre-recorded voices apologising for the delay and asking him to wait also abound.

The right on hold music to use in telephone recordings has been extensively and scientifically studied by corporations employing psychologist cohorts in an effort to keep the consumer calm and serene and to keep him from hanging up the phone either from anger or impatience, or both.

They have spent considerable resources looking for the right tunes to lead the consumer to a lull of patience and passive enjoyment, trying to subdue his anger and trying to keep him from feeling the negative experience of waiting to its barest minimum. All of these are in view of the goal of successfully closing a sale and keeping the customer.

Using music in trying to alleviate the situation of waiting consumers have supposedly arisen from the development of background music by Erik Satie. He was a composer from France who wrote the Gymnopédies, a three-piece composition, the first of which is well known as the theme for Man on Wire, a 2008 documentary. Erik Satie started writing what he called ‘furniture music’ in 1917 due to his disillusionment and cynicism towards the average listener. His obsession with his idea of the incapability of music to effectively reach the audience led him to the erroneous conclusion that the twentieth century will go down in history as the time when music will only become relegated to the background.

The science of on hold music has also been successfully applied in shopping malls, where music is used to influence shoppers. University of Cincinnati marketing professor James Kellaris stated that the behavior of consumers has been significantly affected by music. These include a warped time perception, brand association with certain musical tunes and the impairment of critical judgment regarding potential purchases. In short, music is aimed to reduce sales resistance. According to Kellaris, the limitation of the human brain’s bandwidth in terms of information processing is further clogged by such music, thus preventing rational decisions when buying merchandise and distorting the consciousness of time.

While all this may be true for music in malls and groceries, it is not necessarily applicable to on hold music. Music may indeed distract the caller and help them forget about the time spent waiting on hold, but certain music that are too dull and familiar to the listener may have the reverse effect. It may actually let time move more slowly. Kellaris stated that this is due to the fact that since the musical piece is already familiar, the listener may recall the entire music piece and thus negate the very purpose of the on hold music.

The listener’s mindset and gender, as well as the particular setting, also has an influence on the on hold music’s effectiveness. For example, it has been found that alternative rock is the best type of music in shortening time perception in women, while it is classical music that does the same thing for men.

Professor Anat Rafaeli of Israel conducted a study with her former students, focusing on what kind of music keeps the waiting caller happy. The Journal of Applied Psychology published their findings, which compared waiting time, on hold music and pre-recorded apologies. The results of the study showed that positive feedback was given by callers when they were informed about their current place among those who were waiting. Those who were made to wait with background music did not generate as much positive feedback.

Furthermore, it was found that pre-recorded apologies exacerbated the impatience and mood of the callers, especially since they do not provide any useful information and at the same time interrupt the on hold music. This may be due to the fact that the caller may already be drifting and going with the flow of the music – and thus forgetting the passing of time – when suddenly, the recorded apology reminds them that they are actually waiting after all.

Image courtesy of [stockimages] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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