According to hold-music providers, the people in charge of customer experience are rarely involved in choosing hold music. Today, that five minutes of tape is the default hold music for more than 100 million Cisco IP phone systems worldwide. There are whole libraries of so-called royalty-free hold music. For example, if you’re a musical aesthete, you’re more likely to get seriously aggravated by poorly arranged hold music, experts say. But even the most carefully selected hold music and messaging could eventually fall on deaf ears if callers use apps like Never Hold, DoNotPay and Hold For Me, which effectively hold for you and notify you when a live person picks up the line.

Source: Wall Street Journal May 22, 2024 09:52 UTC