Telephone Hold Music - The Psychological Impact

Telephone hold music - We've been discussing the importance of appealing to the range of people and personality types calling your business or organization. We'll now zero in on some of the specific factors that play into your choice of telephone hold music - and its emotional and psychological impact on your callers. This is important for the simple reason that your telephone hold music may actually have an influence on your bottom line!

What criteria should you consider in choosing your telephone hold music? Your own personal preference may or may not be the best point of reference. Of course, you may want to be guided in part by the tastes of your clientele who are calling, however, that may or may not be the best way to pick your on-hold music either. The effects of various types of music, from classical to country to rock to rap, on humans, animals, and even plants have been studied for years and become subjects of popular discussion. While researching for this blog I came across an article (at "Suite101," a library of online articles on a range of topics) describing one such study in which one group of mice listened to classical music twenty-four hours a day while a second group listened to heavy metal. The researcher then timed the mice as they ran through mazes to see if the music affected their speed of learning. According to the article, the researcher unfortunately had to terminate the experiment prematurely as the mice exposed to the heavy metal music all killed one another. Could there be a lesson here to learn for you in picking your telephone hold music?

Statistically, it appears that music types such as classical, soft jazz, piano, and harp may be the optimum choice for engendering a positive mindset in your callers as they wait on hold. It seems that, as a general rule, the harder-edged the music the more negative the emotional and psychological impact on those exposed to it. (By the way, violent and negative lyrics can also have adverse effects on listeners, and this would tend to compound the problems with music such as hard rock, however, for telephone hold music it is generally better to use instrumental music anyway. More on this topic in a future post.)

Real estate agents are known to employ the positive psychological and emotional affect of the smell of fresh-baked bread or chocolate chip cookies wafting through the air to help create positive feelings about a house they are showing. Perhaps the right choice in your telephone hold music could have a similar impact on your callers' ears! It may be only a subtle effect, but if it favorably disposes them toward doing business with you, even if only slightly, it would be worth it.

More Information: