Music on Hold

How many times in the course of everyday life have you been put on hold by a company's phone system? How often do you hear original music? How about just a radio station playing? How often have you heard some type of promotional message?

You probably cannot count how many times!

Pre-recorded audio is presented millions of times per day to millions of people, yet many companies often just hook up a radio or CD player to their phone systems - missing out on potential to engage customers positively.

There is money to be made by ambitious composers and VO artists by offering royalty free music and promotional messages to businesses. This can be a nice income source with steady customers that actually pay on time.

There are two types of messages used with phone systems
1 - standard music playback
2 - interactive voice responses

Why would a company want to use your music instead of just playing the radio? One big reason is cost and risk management. Technically playing the radio or a CD over a phone line is a public performance and a company is required to pay licensing fees to the performing rights associations (ASACP, BMI, etc). Most companies don't pay this and many won't care - but it is a risk. The second reason is because they can have you compose music that creates an identity about the company, it can be tailored to their customers.

For VO artists there is a growing need for quality IVR (interactive voice response) messages. These are special prompts that interact with a caller. There are both inbound and outbound IVR. If you have ever accessed your bank account over the phone you have used an IVR. Companies are starting to use IVR messages in more and more creative ways.

In my next post on Music on Hold I will describe how to approach your mix, and some things you need to know about the type of file you will need to give the customer.