A public radio station in San Francisco said in a news report this week that its health insurance exchange, which opened to the public this month, saw long wait times for many of its callers. About 60,000 people called on the first day alone, and those people waited for up to 30 minutes to get assistance with purchasing their healthcare coverage.
The big question on the minds of KALW, that local radio station, was not about the primary customer service Covered California provided for its callers or the long wait times in general. Instead, it wanted to know why people stayed on the line for so long, and what sort of hold music they sat through during their calls.
To get to the bottom of this question, KALW spoke to a marketing professor, Vijay Kershnan, who specifically studies the science of hold music. Daniel Moore, the KALW reporter, first played for Kershnan the typical music that callers would experience during their time waiting on hold with Covered California.
The music is nothing out of the ordinary. It sounds like typical hold music; something one might hear in an elevator. It does not disturb, and it does not stimulate, and those are the features Kershnan latches on to the most. He describes the music as such:
"It's kind of, very repetitive," Kershnan begins. "I'm not able to clearly define the genre there, but it's very repetitive, so after the first time the pattern repeated, I switched off thinking about the music, and I'm just, sort of, tapping on the table [and] waiting for the music to end."
Kershnan then provides some information about what could make better hold music. He says it is hard to say what music is best. However, there is a shift from what he would define as good, as it compares to traditional hold music.
Traditional hold music is often in a standard meter, is repetitious, and does not arouse the listener. On the contrary, his research has shown that music that makes listeners think will keep their attention for longer and effectively distract them from their surroundings.
In short, he is saying that complex music will allow the listener to focus on the music instead of long wait times. The Covered California music, for example, was boring enough to Kershnan that it did not keep his attention, and therefore he could possibly go back to thinking about how long he had been on hold. More complex music may have effectively distracted him enough to keep his focus on the songs and away from the long hold time.
Kershnan did not touch on the element of arousal and the possibility that there could be a need for a balance between calm music and arousing music so that callers were not primed to be aggressive on the phone but were distracted enough to focus less on their wait times. Businesses wanting to customize their conference bridge hold music to suit different situations could seek solutions such as those from AT Conference that offer ways of catering hold music to specific situations and users.
In the mobile era, clients, colleagues, friends and family all have cellphones, meaning many have a customizable ring tone. Maybe it’s a favorite song or Stewie from the TV show “Family Guy” calling for his Mommy, the personal touch is important.
One may be surprised how popular customizable hold music is for conference calls, but not AT Conference. Whether it’s Iron Maiden, James Taylor or Dr. Dre, AT allows you the freedom of choice from wherever you choose to use conference call services.
Edited by Maurice Nagle