On Hold

If you are like me, you probably hate being on hold.  The background music is often too loud or annoying. You probably keep checking the time of the call to see how long you’ve been waiting and the longer it is the more your irritation grows. Have you ever thought about this for those that call your school? Have you ever listened to your on-hold music? How long do people on hold wait on average?  If the phone beeps to remind you someone is waiting, does someone pick it up and provide an update or does the hold just get renewed? How many buttons does someone have to press to actually talk to a human? These may sound like little things, but for some it could be another thing adding to their internal list of complaints.

Now I’d like for you to take a minute and think about the time someone spends on hold as an opportunity to share the good news about your school.  Does your phone system allow for customizable messages for the hold time? If so, think about what you could do with that 30 or 60 seconds a person waits to talk to you.  We know companies pay millions of dollars for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl. Why? It’s because they have a captivated audience and their message can be cleverly communicated during that time.

Now if you decide to change up your hold message/music, please have some type of system and person/people responsible for updating regularly; no one likes a Christmas message in January.

Here are some ideas to get you started of what you could try:

• Record students singing at Mass. No one can resist student voices.
• Promote an upcoming event or fundraiser—PTO meeting, parish event, prayer service.
• Record a weekly prayer read by a couple of students.
• Highlight a recent student/team achievement—Quick Recall, essay winner, basketball league champs, etc.
• Share snippets of information about a saint or two read by students or staff.
• Provide statistics about Catholic education or particulars about your school.

There are lots of free tools you can use to create very professional recordings. If you have questions or need help getting started, contact me.  I’d be happy to help.