After hearing impressive-sounding messages on-hold at bigger companies, a lot of small shops, modest healthcare practice, or home-based business owners might have thought of playing promotional messages on-hold for their callers only to become frustrated in their efforts to acquire them implemented with the single-line or multi-line telephones they presently use. They can take heart. It appears that technologies have smiled on them!
There was a time when the capability of playing music & messages for callers on-hold was reserved only for businesses that could afford the expense or warrant the space needed for Key Service Unit (KSU) or PBX telephone systems. The advent of telephone-audio or music-on-hold (MOH) adapters several years ago brought on-hold messaging to home-based and other little businesses, which we’re using single-line, two-line, or four-line phones. As the number of companies opting to take advantage of this powerful form of advertising grew, manufacturers of telephone-audio adapters began investing more money into development, resulting in innovation, improved quality, and reliability, as well as compatibility with a wider range of telephone, makes, and models.
Following a steady increase in the number of home-based businesses, the economic challenges of the last few years have spawned a dramatic rise in “bedroom offices”. Also, a lot of little companies operating in commercial office space have had to defer upgrading to business telephone systems. But without a doubt, these companies are eager to harness the selling potential of professionally produced messages on-hold and to present the authoritative image they provide. Nowadays, virtually any telephone with a hold and/or flash button can be adapted for music & messages on-hold, including cordless phones, or even a mixture of cordless and corded phones from differing manufacturers.
This has meant really good news for professional audio production companies specializing in custom message on-hold productions, which strive to offer a complete production and equipment package but have sometimes experienced their frustrations in trying to provide solutions to companies using KSU-less or Non-System phones. The progress in technologies has allowed message on-hold providers to (so to speak) answer the call of an emerging segment of entrepreneurs, healthcare offices, and others who recognize the importance of information on-hold.
One of the by-products of development efforts by audio adapter manufacturers is a simplified installation. Nearly all adapters are designed to be plugged into the phone jack at the wall ahead of any one of the telephones. Once the phone is plugged into the adapter, that phone and all other phones in the office will share the audio on-hold capability. To accommodate the wide variety of phones out there, most adapters feature multiple settings (think of them as options for fine-tuning), which enable owners to achieve the best results for sound quality, reliability, and ease-of-use. In some cases, the phone model or mixture of models might require users to press the “flash” button or a “flash and hold” button sequence to activate the audio on-hold function; a minor inconvenience that is usually a matter of quickly learned training for employees answering the phones.
Because of continued improvements in technologies and design, these adapters allow businesses of any size to project the same professional appearance… whether that business is located next to a neighborhood park or inside an upscale office park. Tiny, private medical practices or tiny shops using KSU-less phones can Make use of hold messages to communicate important information on elective procedures and other services available to patients. And as long as the manufacturers of adapters and other technology-based products continue to push toward innovative and reliable solutions for new and existing telephones, smaller shops and home-based businesses will experience greater opportunities for communicating valuable information on products and services to their callers on-hold.
