Music that hasn’t been compressed to hell and back.
If the music is interrupted by anything, then that needs to be:
- brief and preferably informative. Queue position is useful; how valuable my call is is not.
- infrequent. I don’t need to know my queue position that often, and I don’t need to know how important my call is ever.
- clearly not someone picking up my call. Fade the audio out nicely and then immediately start the voice part with no silence, so I don’t start listening to see if the talking is a call handler. Ideally, just do this at the end of the song. See above.
Most hold systems play a short piece of music where everything outside of 300-3000Hz has been obliterated so it sounds like absolute ass, interrupt it every 30s or so to play the same pointless speech clip, and initiate that clip with some silence and clicks that sound like someone picking up a phone.
I was on hold once and the music was some pretty solid low effort lounge jazz that cycled through like 12 different but similar songs. It was calm enough to relax to and when the call actually got ansered I found myself missing the chill soundtrack to my day. More places should do it that way.
My second favorite is when it plays about 2 min of shitty music recording and then interrupts to tell me the call is important, but whatever system they have is clearly not handling this well so the quality of both soundbites starts to degrade the longer you’re on hold until the music sounds like a dying speaker pressed to a handheld somewhere and the important call voice is unintelligible for every other syllable. Those are so fucking fun because it feels like a genuine horror story moment.
I imagine that after 20 minutes it sounds like a combination of rusty chains and someone driving over a pack of oreos
the screams of the damned
Something I can zone out of, and no talking, so when someone does finally answer it’ll get my attention again. If you can’t/won’t staff your call centres appropriately the least you can do is let me do other things while I wait.
Also this thread reminded of this:
What a banger!
Low-key music of some sort, with no voice interruption. This way I know the call is still connected, and won’t get false positives thinking they’ve connected me to a person but it’s actually just a recording telling me how important my call is.
I like when they tell me to press whatever number and they’ll call me back when it’s my turn
Do those ever work? I’ve tried them a few times but always have to try again the next day when it never happens
I’ve never had it not work for me. I rarely call to phone lines nowadays, but a few I have over the years that offered the service, they always called me back.
I’ve had reasonable luck with Alaska Airlines the two times I’ve tried it, and Fedex once, I think.
Those would be great if they’d tell you what number they’re going to call from.
i want to not hear that i can use the website yo resolve my issue because i am only calling because the website is unusable trash
VMware?
Definitely music, no matter how bad. I know call centers are intentionally understaffed so I will be waiting a long time (and they hope I’ll give up). Ill be putting my phone down and on speaker: I need something that reminds me the call is still there but is audibly distinct from a voice so I notice when they pick up
Not all call centres, actually as there are only 3 of us are we even a call centre? But my job involves providing phone support and there is almost never a hold queue.
Nothing is the worst option as you don’t know if anything is actually happening.
The voice interrupts are annoying as hell more so when trying to direct you away from the call to the web platform that just told me to call because its too complex.
Music or radio is fine. As long as its not Opus No.1 or terrible chip tune.
The best hold music I heared was 2009ish IBM hold music, light jazz with no voice interrupts.I spent some time on the VA’s phone lines while caring for my dad, and kind of grew to like Opus No. 1. There are far worse default options out there. More importantly, I prefer the necessary interruption to let me know I’m still on hold and they’re going to come back to me not be every 20 seconds, and not be at a volume twice as loud as everything else.
I really hate nothing at all. I’ve been hung up on before and didn’t realize it for a minute until I looked at my phone. Why don’t smartphones have that old disconnect sound that landlines would do? Maybe some do.
Also not a fan of the piped in radio music that apparently is being picked up under a bridge, so it’s a faded volume and keeps going in and out. Usually the music isn’t bad, but can we tune it in better?
a scream that increases in volume the closer i am to the front of the queue
Imagine using the Sonic underwater nearly drowning music when you’re the next person in line.
I despise the music just because they always play it at the highest possible volume. I have to turn it down to the lowest point in my telephone, to be able to endure it at all. Then when a human voice appears, I hardly hear it.
My favourite is the barely in range radio station. Besides that, who in the blue fuck tried to play music through an audio channel that is severely bandwidth restricted and filtered for voice, music over the phone has never ever worked well.
Right?? Once the hold music starts, I set my phone to speaker at a low volume just so I can hear it playing while I place it on my desk. Then someone finally picks up and I don’t notice they’re already talking.
I dislike most of the music and if you tell me how much you care you lie to me. If you cared so much you would have employed enough people to answer the phone immediately.
Your call is important to us. Not more important than the 15 people in line in front of you, or our regularly scheduled breaks, but certainly no less important than the 20 people who called after you.
You are currently Caller #5 waiting to speak with a representative. Thank you for your patience…
You are currently Caller #2 waiting to speak with a representative. Thank you for your patience…
3 customers just threw away their phones rather than listen to that.
I’m OK with those, as long as there’s a reasonable delay between the updates. It let’s me know if I can do chores such as shopping and laundry while I wait, or I have to sit glued to my screen.
My favourite is being on hold for disability benefits when one of my symptoms is sound sensitivity which makes it hard to listen to music and they play shitty music really loud. And then intersperse it with messages that sound like somebody answering the phone but it’s just a message to say that I’m on hold (which is useful because I couldn’t tell that from the hold music and the fact I wasn’t talking to somebody) and that the call volume is unusually high and definitely not like this every day on purpose as a cynical ploy to disincentive people for applying for benefits because you can’t apply online where I live. And then they answer and you have a conversation, the whole point of which is to get them to send you a form to fill in online, but the call cuts out half way through and they don’t call you back so you have to go through the whole thing again but you can’t because the first wait has used up all your spoons for the day. I’m not angry, why d’you ask?
Maybe just the occasional beep would be fine.
