Simple problems series; music-on-hold

This week, in these tough times, I just want to share my thoughts about an easy problem and suggest the idea for solving it.

Hope for a better future

Looking at the progress in technology I’m wondering why the hell the on-hold music which we hear on the phone waiting for our turn in the virtual queue is so horrible?

The problem

Let’s be honest quite often you don’t make a call to tell the company how great they are. Quite often you have a problem or you’re pretty angry. These jingles repeating over and over are horrible and are not tuning you in a nice mood.

There’s a risk this music which might be like an earthquake for the brain will escalate cause your anger to escalate and you’ll pass it on the person you’ll be about to talk to.

And we know that being angry at the person who you want to solve a problem for you is not a good idea, right?

So wouldn’t it be better for both sides if the on-hold music will be more suitable to the situation?

Technicalities

There is one constant part of the music on hold, the quality of the sound is horrible. It feels like the music comes from an old cassette or, what’s worse from a birthday card (the one which plays a “song” when you open it). It actually hurts your bran. It’s a real nightmare but you can't ignore it as you’re waiting and it suppose to entertain you in the meantime.

As waiting and listening to this “lovely music” may take a while, quite often you turn the loudspeaker on and hand free wait for the sound to pause and a human voice end this torture. But after 10 min, 20 min or even an hour you can actually forget why we were calling…
We’ve all been there!

A simple idea

I wasn't planning to write about the choice of the tune - everyone can have a different taste from the decision-maker who's signing it off, but actually this is a great chance for improvement.

1. It would be nice (and I believe also good for the company) to have a specialist (it may be a one-off service) who would advise on the most soothing tune with versatile notes so it won't drive people crazy.
   It’s proven that music can affect our mood in various ways, why we’re not using this knowledge?
2. Imagine if you’d have a choice?! After listening to the intro you’d hear “If you prefer to wait in silence, click zero”

0!

So nice! Now you can turn the loudspeaker on and wait for the Customer Support to call you out or listen to an update on your queueing situation which will cut the silence.

Wouldn’t that be a great idea?
I believe this is the missing part of the service. A good start!

Thanks for reading my 30th story from My 52 problems series.

I’ll try now to write about more uplifting problems!