How to utilize on hold time

Being put On-Hold or navigating through a voice mail menu is a fact of life. If your voicemail recording prompts are unprofessional, it reflects poorly on your business. If your customer is put On-Hold only to hear silence, bad music, or your competitor's ad playing on the radio, that also reflects poorly on your business.
When someone calls your business they are either an existing customer or a potential customer. In other words, one hundred percent your target audience! How do you improve your image when they navigate your voice mail system or wait on hold? First, by making sure you are using professional voice talent to inform, educate, instruct or entertain.

The highest quality voiceover talent is more affordable than ever because of new technology. Most of the nation's best male and female voice actors have home studios because they know they can easily enhance their income full time or part time by being able to turn over quick reads. They simply do the raw voice read and submit it to a full service On-Hold / Voice Mail recording company. These companies then fully produce On-Hold message and music programs, edit and delivery voice mail prompts, web audio, video voice over files or fully produced radio and tv ads to business customers.

Most professional On-Hold messaging companies provide all these services as well as handling the sale of digital message repeaters. Many new phone systems have internal messaging capability and the On-Hold provider can simply email an mp3 or wav file to be saved to a USB drive or other removable media such as a SD memory card.
Be sure to look for a company that is an OHMA (On Hold Messaging Association) member. This assures you of working with a reputable, professional and ethical company. Be sure to ask about the many options usually available including maintenance agreements for companies needing to change On-Hold messages and or voice mail prompts on a fairly regular basis. Other options are one-time rates for programs and voice prompts as well as pre-recorded or generic and business specific CD's or mp downloads.
On-Hold Messaging, Voice Mail Prompts, Web Audio and other Voice Talent projects are very affordable and really enhance your business image in the ear of your customer.