We\'ve all had the experience. You call a business, and are greeted with one of two things, either someone picks up the phone immediately, or you are sent to a pre-recorded message either asking you to leave a voice mail, or to hold. As a business owner, you should look at the on-hold message as a place to serve your customers, and to improve your own sales. By having a professional and informative holding message or voice mail greeting, you are going to help improve both customer satisfaction, and your own sales.rnrnThere are several things that need to be avoided no matter what when it comes time for you to establish an audio greeting or recording for your phone system. By all means, you must avoid cheesy or annoying hold music. This is responsible for more hang ups than any other factor when it comes to pre-recorded messages. You should also try to avoid hard selling the customer through your hold messages. The on hold message is a perfectly legitimate medium to inform your customers about upcoming sales or promotions, but a hard sell approach will again, increase your hang up rate, which is what we are trying to avoid.rnrnYou can instead utilize your hold or voice mail message as a forum to inform customers about you and your company. You can make sure they know about a special that you are currently offering, or let them know about any special events coming up within your business. Every second that they are on hold, is a second that they are a captive audience, so you should use that to your advantage. It is also a great place to offer free tips, ideas, and suggestions in relation to whatever area of business you work in. Customers always appreciate anything that improves their experience, and a satisfied customer, is a return customer.rnrnFrom a sales perspective, every phone call is a potential lead. You can never afford to waste leads, which is something almost everyone in sales is well aware of. By using a finely crafted hold message that was recorded by a professional voice over artist, you are giving yourself a chance to retain more leads and convert more sales than any of your competition that use a pre-recorded, non personal message, or a computer voiced message, or painful hold music, all of which will increase hang ups dramatically.rnrnThe great thing about using hold messages or a voice mail message is that it is just one more way to reinforce your brand. By hiring a professional voice over actor to do the recording of your messages, you can ensure that you find a voice that is going to help reinforce the images that you want your brand to be associated with.rnrnThere are certain sales truths which are universal,and to which the concepts surrounding on hold messages are derived from. Any chance to improve customer service will increase your sales, and creating brand recognition, and a branded identity are essential to a successful company. Use your on hold message as another tool to increase both your customer service, and to reinforce the identity of your brand.rn
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