Please stay on the line
Does this sound familiar? “Due to unusually high call volumes, wait times are longer than usual.” Much to our collective frustration, we know it all too well. That, and the hold music that repeats over, and over, and over!
Historically, hold music was brought to life in the early 60s, a few years after the first transatlantic phone cable was laid, between Newfoundland and Scotland. Are you surprised to learn that even sixty years ago there was a call volume issue, and operators asked callers to “please hold?” What big businesses soon learned was that being asked to “hold” quickly tested the caller’s patience. Sound familiar?
It was Alfred Levy, a factory owner, who accidently discovered the potential of hold music. When an exposed wire in his telephone system picked up a next-door radio broadcast, which transmitted the music to customers on hold, that was the birth of recorded music and messages. While people complain about hold music, companies fear people will hang up without it because of the “dreaded silence.”
Surprisingly, according to Virtual VIP, a company specializing in pleasant hold music, the number one song on its top ten list is Cher’s, “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Funny, we thought for sure it would be Celine Dion’s, “All By Myself,” which is runner up.