Answering Service Care Helps Franchises Hit the Right Notes — Legally
- An Answering Service Care survey reveals that hold music plays a meaningful role in franchise customer experience. It also influences their opinion of the brand.
- Americans spend about 2.8 billion hours a year listening to hold music.
- Franchises’ hold music should be based on the genres and artists that their customers are most likely to appreciate. Answering Service Care has a quiz to guide them to wise music choices.
- Hold music is a commercial transmission, therefore some tracks may require licensing and royalty payments. ASC helps franchisees and franchisors obtain music that suits their criteria.
- ASC’s virtual receptionists ensure no calls are missed and that customers don’t hang up or form a negative impression of a franchise based on its hold music.
A new survey by Answering Service Care, which provides virtual receptionists to handle customer calls when franchise staff is unavailable, found that Americans spend billions of hours per year on hold. During that time, the franchise customer experience can suffer. Customers can be irritated or calmed by hold music, an experience that sends a message about the brand. The takeaway: Hold music has a major impact on customer perceptions and ASC can help franchises get it right.
Perhaps surprisingly, the selection of hold music often receives only superficial consideration. Consumers “like music that is predictable, but we also like surprises thrown in every once in a while,” Laurel Trainor, a professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, tells The Wall Street Journal: “It seems like they [companies] are trying to make hold music as innocuous as possible,” she says in the 2024 article, but “when you hear it over and over and over, in a short loop, it’s going to increase your irritation, not decrease it.” The Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association agrees and suggests three to four 90- to 180-second tracks without silence gaps to soothe callers and keep them on the line.
The Cumulative Wasted Time
At first glance, that may not sound like much time. But Answering Service Care’s national survey of 2,000 adults found that the average American spends 41 minutes on hold each month, which totals roughly 2.8 billion hours per year for all of the nation’s adults. That equals about 26 full days over a lifetime and equates to Americans collectively listening to about 315,000 years of hold music during one calendar year.
Every second of a caller’s lost time represents missed opportunities. That caller could instead be doing something productive, fun or otherwise meaningful, which is why long, disagreeable wait times are a consumer turn-off. ASC is dedicated to keeping holds short and pleasant, says Logan Shooster, vice president of strategic growth for 52-year-old Answering Service Care.
The Allure of Enjoyable Hold Music
“ASC’s survey found that while customers are on hold, the music can shape either positive or negative feelings toward businesses on the other end of the line,” Shooster says. “That’s why it’s so important to choose hold music carefully.”
Some of the survey’s key findings are:
- More than three out of five respondents (63%) say hold music influences how they perceive a brand. That number climbs to 76% among 35- to 44-year-olds, the age group with the strongest emotional reaction to hold music.
- Half of the survey’s 55-and-older respondents affirm that hold music affects their view of a brand.
- Nearly a quarter of people surveyed say the hold music of a company directly defines its identity.
- 5% of respondents say they developed a negative opinion about a company solely because of its hold music.
Genre and Vocalists Matter
The survey also solicited opinions about the music’s genre. One-fourth of respondents favor nostalgic throwbacks, 24% prefer rock, and 19% like country best. Eight percent would rather have silence than music of any kind.
Diving a little deeper, ASC’s survey determined that the wrong music can heighten callers’ frustration, and the right choices can ease it. Respondents cited these artists as the most frustrating: Taylor Swift, 11%; Beyoncé and Snoop Dogg, both at 10%; Lizzo, 9.5%; and Drake, 9%.
On the flip side, when respondents named their most calming vocalists, Elton John hit No. 1 with 60%, and The Beatles tallied 59%. Other choices were Queen (49%), Ed Sheeran (47%) and Coldplay (41%). ASC’s quiz helps franchise owners figure out the most appealing hold music for their customers.
Legal Hurdles
Once franchise leaders decide on the optimum genre and artists, something ASC assists its clients with, then they must meet any licensing requirements, which can be expensive to secure. Music subscription services such as Apple Music and Spotify grant only personal-use rights; telephone transmission of music constitutes a commercial use. Performance-rights groups collect millions in royalties every year for the commercial use of protected works, and copyright violations can incur very costly penalties. ASC helps franchises navigate these hurdles within their budgets.
The franchise customer experience impacts the brand. Regardless of whether a franchise’s callers hang up because they hate the hold music or lose patience during their wait time, missed calls mean missed business opportunities. ASC’s live customer service representatives (rather than artificial intelligence software) courteously and professionally answer calls as well as texts and emails 24/7 – nights, weekends, holidays – giving franchise leaders peace of mind.
To sum up, hold music is the icing on ASC’s cake. The company helps franchisors and franchisees curate legally obtained hold music to fill the brief wait periods when the service’s well-trained, U.S.-based virtual receptionists respond to the full range of customers’ needs –
questions, problems, appointment scheduling, etc.
To Learn More
The ASC website contains further details about the company’s services and procedures as well as how its receptionists handle customer service when franchise employees aren’t on duty.
