5 Rules of On Hold Marketing
On hold marketing is one of the best ways that you can optimize your marketing resources. As we have written about in the past, you have already spent the marketing dollars to get the phone to ring, why would you want to take a chance on losing that customer and waste that money?
Following these 5 rules of on hold marketing will help you grow your business and keep your customers satisfied and happy.
Never Have an Outdated Message
This does not make the company look good, as it shows there is no interest in the company being up to date and may seem like you do not care about your customer’s satisfaction. In order to achieve this, it is vital that you know your audience and the most frequent questions they ask when they contact you, which would allow you to target key topics you can use on your hold messages and be in line with your customer needs.
Never Have Silence
Even worse than having an outdated message is having no message at all. That leads us to rule number two, never have silence. Callers are more likely to hang up very quickly and never call back. It is proven that clients prefer on hold messages over silence.
Use Your Time Effectively
Customers will, at some point, be put on hold, so use YOUR time effectively. You can entertain, inform or even up sell customers who end up on hold when they call your company. We strongly suggest you provide information about new products, services or even useful information that may solve the customer’s question while waiting. This may encourage them to engage even more with your company, but it is important that you keep it simple. Create a strategy when planning the message and focus on getting that done.
Provide a Call to Action
This rule is very important as it allows you to tell your customer exactly what you want them to do. For example, visit your website, follow your social media links for more information, check out your latest products, sales, etc. When you do this, it’s more likely they will end up doing what you stated on your message. So again, it is essential that you keep your goal in mind.
Be Clear and Concise
Last but not least, the fifth rule: be clear and concise with the information, the messages, and the call to action. You don’t want to confuse the customer, you want them to engage with your company, be informed and guarantee their satisfaction so that they come back for more and even refer other customers. Therefore, as it was stated before, you need to have a clear objective on what it is that you want to cover with the on hold message and select the information and words you need to use in order to achieve your goal.
These are the five rules of on hold marketing that you can’t ignore if you want to maximize your potential, enhance your company’s image and turn what may have always seemed like a waste of time into a powerful marketing tool.
