We Never Put Customers On Hold

WARNING: This blog entry will hold you accountable as a marketer, business owner, executive, or even administrative assistant. If your feathers are ruffled, GOOD! Ruffle them below, in the comments section. This entry is designed to make you a more effective marketer, by shining a light on the dark corners of your strategy and holding you accountable for the customer interactions you don’t even realize you’re having.
“We never put our customers on hold.” When you say that to me, it’s all I can do to keep myself from blurting out, “Just how delusional are you? Are you seeing someone for that?”
Call me blunt or rude, but never call me dishonest. Think about what you’re saying here.
Do you mean to tell me that, as soon as the call is initiated, there is someone in your business who immediately picks up the line, with zero seconds of ring tone, every single time, without fail? Are you saying to me, with a straight face, that you force your customers to silently wait for 10-15 seconds of ring tone before dumping them on a soul-less answering machine? Are you comfortable with flushing 10-15 seconds of your precious marketing time down the toilet? What about those between-line calls and transfers? While your sales director is looking for an answer to the caller’s question, the caller is put on hold, so they won’t hear the paper-shuffling and muffled swearing that may or may not come with the pursuit of that answer. This is, perhaps, where a customer might spend the most time on hold. This is time wasted, if it is not time captured.
Now, let me ask you again. What do your customers hear when they call your office? If you do not know, I suggest you stop reading right this instant and call your own company. I am willing to bet that most of you have never done such a thing, and some of you are even blind to the benefit of putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the one we have the most difficulty finding. Sometimes, the simplest inquiry can lead to the most profound benefits. Call yourself, and see if you are or are not bored to tears while you wait for the line to pick up, wait for a connection to be made, or wait to leave a message. What do you hear when you call your office? If it is anything less than “an engaging message that keeps the caller on the line at all costs, because that call is important to our livelihood,” you’re doing it wrong. The truth is harsh, man.
Then, there are those who lack the ability to realize that they cannot do everything perfectly themselves – and that sometimes, just sometimes, professionals are the best at what they do professionally. If you sell paper, I’m sure you do not also have a degree in music production. Yet, so many think that both sound and their callers’ time are so unimportant that they can throw together a shamefully poor production, slap it on a tape in an answering machine, and call it message-on-hold. I cannot count how many times I’ve been told about how a company prefers to “do it [them]selves,” after suffering through an unbearably poorly-recorded on-hold message. I want to laugh, but sometimes you just have to let others make their own mistakes – repeatedly – until they realize that there truly is a better way to do some things.
Let’s say you think you’ll save $100 by recording a message yourself, using your own untrained, regional accent and the recording equipment that comes with your $50 answering machine. Let’s review some factual information. 7 out of every 10 callers will be put on hold, and 35% of those callers put on hold will NEVER call back after hanging up on you. Why should they? You don’t respect them enough to give them any value in their call. 94% of marketing efforts are directed at getting that customer to call (why else are you marketing? For public edification?), yet only 6% is spent on handling that call, once it is received. Are you serious? That’s like holding a grand opening for a restaurant, spending a fortune on ribbons and signs and advertising, then staffing only 6 servers to attend to your guests. You’ve saved $100, but you’ve wasted hundreds (perhaps even thousands) more in wasted marketing efforts, dropped calls, missed opportunities, and even lost customers that you once had. How does this make any sense? This is not a completely rhetorical question; I really want to know, because so many of you seem to think this is a good business practice!
Oh, but we play music for our callers while they wait for us to pick up the line. That should keep them happy. Are you sure you’re not asking for fines and possible jail time in the process of doing this? Never mind that customers stay on the line 25% longer with an on-hold message, compared to an on-hold background song (that cuts in and out most of the time, in my own personal experience). I’m talking about copyrights and licenses. You have no rights to any copyrighted music to which you do not own the copyright, and if you use someone else’s music in your on-hold time, you are breaking the law.
I am truly seeking discussion here. I want to make you angry with these pointed remarks, because at least then you’ll express some passion! Do you disagree with me? By all means, let me know; let the world know. Enlighten us. I have surveyed you, and a shocking 10% of you (approximate) truly believe that you owe nothing to your callers, because either you “never” put them on hold (these are exact words said to me) or there is no value in your customers’ on-hold time. I’d love for your customers to respond to that one. Hey, if you don’t care enough about me to not torture me on hold, I don’t care enough about your business to hand you my money. You’re not the only fish in the sea, baby. I’ll call someone who cares.

This conversation is not over!

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So You Wanna Answer a Voice Over Ad.

As with any professional position, a call for voice over talent is a request for responsible talent.  A call for voice over talent is not a come-on-down-for-fun-times request.  Voice over artistry is not something that anyone can do.  It is, however, something that many people think they can do.  Anyone can cover a wall with paint – not everyone is a paint artist.

Here are some points to consider when responding to a classified ad for voice talent.  These points are from the point of view of the person who receives your response to the ad.  In other words, this person has the power to flag you in for a reading and a paying gig – or laugh your application right into the trash.  These pointers are from a purely human-resources and talent-management point of view.  For in-depth technical and vocal training advice, you’ll consult with a skilled sound producer such as Steve Bartolotta.  For self-promotion techniques, you’ll read through this blog entry.

Yes, everyone has to start somewhere, and you may be one of those people who is truly talented but has not recorded a demo yet.  How am I to distinguish you from the video game potato who thinks it would be “fun to try”?  Hey, performing surgery would be fun to try, but when I take an honest look at myself, I discover that I am slightly under-qualified.  Please refrain from responding to our ad with “I got a good singing voice,” misspelled and lacking any identifying information, such as your name.  This angers the email gods in a mighty way.

You might list your character impersonations, foreign languages, and accents in your email response, but once you are in the booth, what amuses your friends and family might turn out to be something that makes our ears bleed.  The simplest, most straightforward way around this problem is to give the studio a call on the phone.  It’s a mini-screening, and it helps the recruiter get a better idea of your vocal range.  This saves us a lot of time, and gives an inexperienced voice talent a chance to prove him or herself.  

On the other side of the coin, there are some beneficial rules of practice that apply to experienced voice over artists seeking a gig.  First of all, send your demo with your response to the request for talent.  Just do it.  Don’t send me to your website and insist that they can all be downloaded, because we will be sending four emails back and forth to each other: I tell you they can’t be downloaded; you tell me they can; I explain in greater detail that they can’t be downloaded; you finally send me a demo.  Just send the demo.

If the request for talent specifies a language or accent, send a demo showcasing your talents in that exact language or accent.  Here’s the key to success, however: Split your demos.  Do not send an entire reel of you going through your repertoire, from narration to character to accent to announcement and everything in between.  This is because your particular submission will be much stronger if it is not diluted with extraneous examples of your voice.  For instance, let’s say a client is seeking a voice to speak English in a German accent, and they insist on an authentic accent.  If you submit a demo that contains your German accent, a shaky British accent, and your impression of Spongebob, you’re not getting the job.  It becomes glaringly obvious that you are imitating the accent, and the client loses their ear for you, so to speak.  They are distracted by your lack of qualifying factors and will not be able to imagine your voice reading their script.  The client's ideal in this case is a native speaker of the language, reading an English script.  Your challenge is to convince the client, with your voice talent, that you are a native speaker.  That is the essence of (voice) acting.  If your German accent is indeed precise, practiced, and authentic-sounding, that will come through in your individual demo.  Your voice will literally speak for itself.  Bundled together with other accents – especially if those accents are not exactly crisp – that German accent you’ve worked so hard to perfect sounds like a cheap knockoff, even if it is pronounced with perfection.

To be a successful voice over artist, you need talent, skill, and the proper equipment.  To be a successful job candidate, you need some marketing savvy, business knowledge, and people skills.  If you are just breaking into this business, you will eventually have all of these qualifications – but you will never gain experience until you get your foot in the door – or your lips near our mic.

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Selecting Music for Your Production

When producing a presentation, DVD, Radio or Television spot, or other multi-media production, the proper use of music can make or break your final product.  When possible, it is always most desirable to have a custom post score done by a professional and commercial composer.  Sadly, the harsh reality of most budgets exclude this option and often times, music becomes a mere afterthought.

Bummer!

Well, afterthought or not, your music choice is critical.  As an audio producer with nearly 30 years of experience, I’ve found that in most cases simpler is better.  I often listen to over-produced production music and try to imagine how anyone could effectively use the track - a slight disconnect between composer and producer I would say.  

Tight and simple statements are usually best to convey a feeling, whether it be excitement, importance, sincerity or attention.  We apply this same philosophy when writing a piece as well.  It is important to consider tempo first.  The tempo of the voice over will often times determine an appropriate tempo for the music to be added.  If you take the time to listen to the dry voice over first, you can audition different tempos by simply clapping your hands to the read and listening for what sounds most natural.  In some cases, the voice over is too fast or feels nervous and can be quelled with a slightly more relaxed musical piece.  More often a read is too flat, as in the case of a testimonial or a read by someone who normally doesn’t do voice over professionally.  In this case a more exciting music bed can help the read along.

Some other tips when mixing music are to not settle for the equalization that is on the piece that you introduced into your project.  I will often thin out music that is too rich in the mid range section, for example, in order to make room for the voice over.  This enables you to keep the music level up so that it is audible and exciting, without it competing with the voice over too much.  Another technique I use is to make an exact copy of the music on a lower track.  I will then hard pan the top track to one side and the bottom track to the other.  This provides more room for the voice as well! 

Music in production is an essential asset and can truly elevate any production to a higher level!

Steve  Bartolotta
Markethold Productions, Inc.

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Message on Hold - Does it Make a Difference?

Message on hold – does it really make any difference?

As a business owner or manager, if I could hire a salesman or even a person who could suggest items that my customers may want to consider for about 2 dollars a day, I would have to be crazy not to...right?  Well essentially that is what you get with a quality message-on-hold system from a reputable company.  Not just any message to baby-sit callers, I mean interesting topical information that generates inquiries and web traffic as well. Message-on-hold places ideas in the minds of callers who are waiting for assistance.  They make your business a real, living, breathing entity and help with customer loyalty and rapport.  

This being said, it is equally important that the information is current and reflective of the changes in your business and your industry.  Like any news, the more current the information is, the more attentive the listener.  No one wants to, for example, hear about last year's World Series or interest rates from 2008.  This information will actually send a message of a lack of attention to detail or complacency to your callers.  “This week's specials include” or “we have many activities this month” are the types of introductions to messages that can really generate inquiries.   In order to accomplish this, however, it is important to develop a relationship with a message-on-hold company that can accommodate your immediate needs.

What to look for in a message-on-hold company:

·         Customer service- Do they have someone devoted to ensuring your messages are updated in a timely manner?

·         Longevity – Are they a long-standing provider with a good reputation? Many smaller companies struggle with staffing and having enough clients to maintain consistency

·         Turn Around – Does the company respond to your production needs

·         Production quality- Are the on the production side doing broadcast quality productions on a regular basis or are they simply phone system people who extended into a phone related area?

·         Rates and Offerings- Does the company offer flexibility in the packages they offer and is there on suited to your businesses needs?

Steve Bartolotta

President- Markethold Productions Inc.

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