What is On-Hold Messaging? The Ultimate Guide to Enhancing Caller Experience

I’m going to be honest with you. The first message on hold I ever produced was a disaster.

It was 2017, and a dental office hired me to fix their phone experience. So what is on-hold messaging, and why did mine flop? Because I treated it like a radio ad instead of a caller experience.

The audio sounded great in my studio. But on the phone line, it sounded like it was playing underwater.

Since then, I’ve produced on hold messaging for more than 200 companies of all sizes. As a result, I’ve learned what keeps callers on the line and what makes them hang up. This guide shares all of it.

TL;DR: On-Hold Messaging at a Glance

Question	Quick Answer	Why It Matters	My Take
What is it?	Audio that plays while callers wait on hold	Silence makes callers hang up fast	Treat it like a landing page, not background noise
What does it cost?	$20/month DIY, up to $2,000/year for an agency	Budget shapes your production options	Start small, then upgrade once you see results
Is Spotify legal on hold?	No, that breaks public performance rules	Fines can hit thousands per song	Use licensed or royalty-free music only
How long will callers wait?	Most hang up around the 45-second mark	Your first message window is tiny	Put your best content in seconds 30 to 45
How often should I update it?	Monthly to yearly, based on call frequency	Stale messages cause audio fatigue	Match update speed to how often customers call

What is On-Hold Messaging?

On-hold messaging is recorded audio, usually a mix of voice and music, that plays for callers waiting on the line. Instead of silence or beeps, your callers hear greetings, answers to common questions, and promotions. The goal is simple: keep people on hold engaged until a person picks up.

Sounds basic, right? But here’s the thing.

That waiting time is the only marketing channel where your audience literally can’t look away. They called you. Therefore, every second of hold time is attention you already earned.

Unlike cold calling, where you chase strangers who never asked for you, these callers dialed in themselves.

Most businesses waste it. In fact, plenty of consumers are listening to dead air or a fuzzy loop right now. A good message on hold turns that wasted time into trust, sales, and fewer repeated questions.

The Meaning of “Call Hold” and “On Hold”

So what does call on hold actually mean?

When a client relations representative places you on hold, the phone system parks your call in a queue. The line stays open, but the conversation pauses. Meanwhile, the system routes audio to your ear instead of silence.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

• Your call connects to the company’s phone system.
• The system parks the call and keeps the line active.
• An audio source streams music or messages to you.
• Finally, the system pulls your call back when someone is free.

That parked state is the “hold.” And the audio filling it is the on-hold message.

Background and Evolution of On-Hold Audio

Hold music has a strange origin story. Back in 1962, a factory owner named Alfred Levy noticed his phone lines picked up a local radio station.

A loose wire touched a steel beam, which acted like an antenna. Callers loved it, so he patented “music on hold” in 1966.

For decades, that was the whole product. Just music.

Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, companies realized they could add voice content between songs. As a result, on hold programs evolved from background filler into targeted messaging.

🧠 Fun Fact: The most famous hold track ever, Cisco's "Opus No. 1," came from a 16-year-old writing in his parents' garage in 1989. It still plays on millions of calls today.

How On-Hold Messaging Works: A Technical Deep Dive

On-hold messaging works by feeding an audio file or stream into your phone system’s hold channel. The system loops that audio for every parked call. Modern setups handle this in software, while older ones need physical hardware.

I learned the technical side the hard way. Remember my underwater dental office audio?

That happened because I ignored how phone lines compress sound. So let’s make sure you don’t repeat my mistake.

Understanding the Phone System and Audio Files

Your phone system type decides how you deliver your audio. Additionally, it decides how your audio will sound. There are two main worlds here: legacy PBX and modern VoIP.

Here’s how each one processes on hold audio:

• Traditional PBX: A physical box in your office routes calls. It usually needs an external audio player plugged into a “music on hold” port.
• Cloud VoIP: Calls travel over the internet. You upload a digital file straight into a web portal, and the cloud handles the rest.

But here’s the twist most guides skip. Phone calls use voice codecs, such as G.711, designed for speech rather than music.

These standards come from the International Telecommunication Union, and they squeeze audio down to a narrow frequency range. Consequently, rich orchestral music turns to mush on a cell phone.

💡 Pro Tip: Export your hold audio as an 8kHz, 16-bit, mono WAV file. Then listen to it through an actual phone before going live. If it survives that test, it'll sound clean everywhere.

What is the Hold Music vs. Voice Messaging?

Hold music is instrumental audio that simply fills the silence. Voice messaging, on the other hand, layers spoken content over that music. The difference sounds small, yet it changes everything about results.

Think of it this way. Music on hold says “please wait.” A message on hold says “while you wait, here’s something useful.” One passes time, while the other creates value.

In my experience, the blend matters more than the choice. For example, my best-performing scripts run 15 seconds of voice, then 20 to 30 seconds of music. That rhythm informs callers without exhausting them.

Types of On-Hold Content

On-hold messaging content comes in three main formats: greetings, IVR prompts, and promotional messages. Most businesses need all three. However, each one plays a different role in the caller journey.

Let’s break down each type:

• Greeting messages welcome callers before the hold begins.
• IVR prompts guide callers through menu choices.
• Promotional messages sell or inform during the wait itself.

On-Hold Greeting Messages

Greeting messages are the first thing your callers hear. A good greeting confirms they reached the right business, sets expectations, and sounds like your brand. It runs 5 to 10 seconds, max.

One thing I noticed working with clients: the greeting carries more weight than any other piece. Because first impressions form in seconds, a flat or robotic greeting poisons the whole call. A warm one buys you patience.

Keep your greeting to three beats.

First, name the company. Next, thank the caller. Then, tell them what happens next.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) & Voice Prompts

IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, the automated menu that routes calls. You know it well: “Press 1 for sales, press 2 for support.” These voice prompts sit at the front of your phone experience, before anyone reaches hold.

But IVR is changing fast. The newest trend is SMS deflection, where a prompt says “Press 1 to get a text link instead.” Instead of waiting passively, the caller jumps to a digital experience. I tested this with a logistics client last year, and 31% of callers took the text option.

That text-link handoff borrows from automated outreach, nudging callers toward a faster digital path.

Keep menus short, though. More than four options, and people start mashing zero.

Advertising and Promotional Messages

Advertising on hold means playing short promotional spots while callers wait. These messages highlight products, current offers, your social media channels, or your website. Done well, they turn hold time into a revenue channel.

Treat each spot as spoken sales collateral, working the same offers your brochures and emails already push.

📌 Example: A tire shop I worked with added one line to their hold audio: "Mention code HOLD10 for 10% off an alignment." Within 90 days, 47 callers redeemed it. That single sentence paid for the entire production three times over.

That promo code trick matters for another reason too. It makes your on hold programs trackable, which we’ll cover in the metrics section.

Why On-Hold Messaging Matters (The Benefits)

On-hold messaging matters because the wait itself shapes how callers judge your business. Psychologists who study time perception have shown that occupied time feels far shorter than empty time. So the same two-minute wait feels brief with good audio and endless in silence.

David Maister called this the “psychology of waiting lines” decades ago. His core insight still holds: perceived wait time matters more than actual wait time. Your hold audio is the cheapest tool you have for shrinking perceived time.

Compare that to cold outreach, where you fight for attention you never earned; on hold, the caller already gave it.

Improving the Customer Caller Experience

Customer experience starts the moment the phone rings, not when an agent answers. Research like the Salesforce state of service report keeps finding the same pattern: customers expect fast, connected, personal service. Silence on hold breaks that expectation instantly.

And silence is the kind thing to call it. Beeps, static, or a clipped radio station all signal one message: we didn’t think about you. A clean, professional message signals the opposite.

I’ve sat in on call reviews where customers opened with “wow, your hold message answered my question.” That’s the bar. Your audio should solve problems before a human ever picks up.

Those call reviews only work if call recording stays on for every queue you run.

Keeping Callers Engaged with Your Brand

Your brand doesn’t pause when a caller hits the queue. Every sound on the line either builds your identity or chips away at it. Audio branding specialists call this “sonic branding,” and it’s why big companies obsess over their hold tracks.

Engagement here is practical, not fluffy. For instance, customer experience researchers at Forrester have long tied emotion to loyalty. A caller who feels respected during the wait stays longer and complains less.

What worked best for me was matching audio energy to brand energy. Likewise, a law firm got calm piano and measured narration.

A surf shop got upbeat acoustic guitar and a casual voice. Same strategy, opposite sounds.

Boosting Sales While Customers Wait

Sales on hold is the benefit most businesses underestimate. Your callers are already interested, already engaged, and literally holding for you. Therefore, a well-placed offer converts better here than almost anywhere else.

A caller already holding is the warmest lead you will get, well past warm calling a lukewarm prospect.

Cross-selling works especially well. To illustrate, a caller waiting for your service desk might not know about your premium plan. A 12-second message can plant that seed.

🔍 Did You Know? Roughly a third of consumers are willing to buy more after a positive service interaction, according to data tracked across customer service research on Statista. Hold time is part of that interaction, whether you script it or not.

On-Hold Messaging Strategies

On-hold messaging strategy means deciding what your callers hear, in what order, and why. Random content performs like random content. A planned sequence, however, moves callers toward action.

My rule: every message block needs a hook, a value point, and one call to action. Fifteen seconds, three beats. Anything more gets cut.

What Should Your On-Hold Messaging Include?

Your message on hold should cover the basics first, then the promotions. Callers need orientation before they need offers. So start with the practical stuff.

Here’s my standard checklist:

• Business hours and location
• Your website URL, spoken slowly and clearly
• Answers to your top two or three questions
• One current promotion or seasonal offer
• Your social media handles, if support happens there
• A polite “thanks for holding” reset every minute or so

Notice what’s missing? “Your call is important to us.” Skip that line forever.

If the call were that important, you would’ve answered it. Instead, use radical honesty, such as “Current wait time is about four minutes.” Callers reward transparency.

Keeping Your Messages On-Brand

Brand alignment means your hold audio sounds like the same company as your website and ads. Voice, tone, vocabulary, and music all need to match. Otherwise, the experience feels stitched together.

Still, on-brand doesn’t always mean polished. Here’s a contrarian truth I learned with local clients.

For a neighborhood plumber, the owner’s own voice, slight imperfections and all, outperformed a slick radio announcer. Because trust beats polish at the local level.

A mistake I made early on was pushing every client toward “professional” voice talent. Now I ask one question first: does your brand win on authority or on familiarity? The answer picks the voice.

Multilingual Projects and Global Reach

Multilingual on-hold messaging serves callers in their preferred language. If your business serves diverse communities, this isn’t optional anymore. It’s table stakes.

There are two common approaches. First, you can alternate languages within one loop, such as English then Spanish. Second, you can use IVR routing, where callers pick a language and hear a dedicated track.

I produced a bilingual program for a medical clinic in 2023. After launch, their Spanish-speaking callers stayed on the line 40% longer. Moreover, front desk complaints about miscommunication dropped almost immediately.

Tools and Equipment for On-Hold Messaging

On-hold messaging tools fall into two buckets: physical equipment for older phone systems and digital delivery for cloud systems. Your setup decides which bucket you’re in. So check your phone system before buying anything.

Quick gut check: if your “phone system” is a box on the wall, you likely need hardware. But if you manage calls in a browser, you’re already cloud-ready.

Telephone On-Hold Messaging Equipment

Legacy phone systems need an external audio player to feed the hold channel. This little device stores your audio file and loops it into a dedicated port on the PBX. Installation takes minutes, not hours.

Here’s the typical equipment list:

• An on-hold audio player, usually a USB or SD-card unit
• An RCA or 3.5mm cable to the PBX’s music-on-hold port
• Your audio file, formatted as 8kHz mono WAV
• A backup copy of the file, because hardware fails

One of our oldest clients, a family hardware store, still runs a 2014-era player. However, it works flawlessly because we formatted the audio correctly from day one.

Digital Delivery and Cloud Deployment

Cloud phone systems make deployment almost embarrassingly easy. You upload a digital audio file into the admin portal, assign it to a queue, and you’re live. No cables, no hardware, no site visit.

The upload path differs slightly by platform. For example, here’s the rough flow for the big three:

1. RingCentral: Admin Portal → Phone System → Hold Music → Upload custom file.
2. Microsoft Teams Phone: Teams Admin Center → Voice → Call queues → Upload your audio.
3. Zoom Phone: Admin → Phone System Management → Settings → Audio Library.

What’s more, cloud deployment unlocks the newest trend: API-driven dynamic messaging. Some systems can now swap hold content based on the caller’s CRM profile.

Imagine a returning customer hearing a warranty reminder for the exact product they own. That’s where this industry is heading in 2026.

Metrics and Recent Trends in Caller Experience

On-hold messaging metrics tell you whether your audio earns its keep. Most businesses never measure this, which is wild. You’d never run a landing page without analytics, yet companies run hold audio blind for years.

The trend data backs up the urgency. Both Zendesk’s cx trends research and Gartner’s work on customer service support point the same direction: customers expect faster, smarter, more personal service every year. Your hold experience either keeps up or falls behind.

Measuring Caller Retention and Drop-off Rates

Call abandonment rate is your core metric. It measures how many callers hang up before reaching a person. Additionally, track average speed of answer and your customer satisfaction score, since hold experience feeds directly into CSAT.

But don’t just track if people hang up. Track when.

In my client data, abandonment doesn’t climb steadily. Rather, it spikes hard around the 45-second mark.

That makes seconds 30 to 45 your prime real estate. Put your highest-value message there, not at minute three.

Pair that with call logging so you can tie each drop-off spike to a specific time slot.

→ Quick formula: Abandonment rate = (calls dropped on hold ÷ total calls held) × 100. Pull this weekly, not yearly.

💡 Pro Tip: You can use two VoIP ring groups to A/B test hold scripts, exactly like testing two landing pages. Route half your calls to each script, then compare abandonment after two weeks. One client cut drop-offs by 18% this way.

Reviewing and Updating Your On-Hold Messaging

Regular audits keep your hold audio from going stale. Caller expectations shift, promotions expire, and hours change. Consequently, an outdated message quietly damages trust every single day it plays.

How often should you update? Use my “wear-out” rule. Match your update frequency to your caller frequency:

• Customers call weekly → refresh content monthly.
• Customers call quarterly → refresh every season.
• Customers call yearly → an annual refresh is fine.

There’s also the “apology fatigue” problem. Repeating “please continue to hold” every 30 seconds doesn’t soothe callers.

Instead, it spikes frustration and drop-offs. Informative content calms people, while apologies on a loop enrage them.

On-Hold Message Examples and Samples

On-hold message examples make this whole topic concrete. Reading theory is fine, yet hearing how a real script flows is better. So let’s look at samples by industry, voice, and music.

A quick note before the examples. Steal the structure, not the words. Your business has its own voice, and your script should sound like it.

On-Hold Message Examples by Industry

Industry context changes everything about your script. A medical message and a retail message shouldn’t even sound related. Here are four sample openers I’ve used:

• Medical clinic: “Thanks for holding. Your privacy matters here, so one of our team members will be with you shortly. Meanwhile, did you know you can request refills through our patient portal?”
• Retail store: “Thanks for your patience! This week only, take 20% off all outdoor gear. Ask your client relations representative about it when we connect.”
• B2B services: “We appreciate your time. While you hold, a reminder: quarterly business reviews are booking now for current accounts.”
• Home services: “Hang tight! For instance, if you’re calling about an estimate, have your address and a few photos ready. It speeds everything up.”

Notice the pattern? Each one respects the caller’s mindset. A stressed patient and an excited shopper need completely different energy.

📌 Example: For sensitive settings, less is more. I once advised a grief counseling center to drop voice messages entirely and use soft ambient music with zero interruptions. Sometimes silence, or near-silence, is the strategy.

Voice Samples (Male and Female Voice Talent)

Voice talent choice shapes how callers feel about your brand in seconds. Gender, pace, warmth, and accent all carry meaning. Yet there’s no universal “best voice,” despite what production agencies claim.

Here’s what my testing across hundreds of hours of audio taught me:

• Calm, mid-paced female voices tested best for healthcare and finance clients.
• Energetic male or female voices both worked for retail, as energy mattered more than gender.
• Local accents boosted trust for community businesses.
• Slow, deliberate pacing beat fast reads everywhere. Phone audio needs breathing room.

Audition at least three voices against your actual script. Then play the finalists through a phone, not studio speakers, before deciding.

Background Music Samples

Background music sets the emotional floor of your entire hold experience. Pick genres that match your business type and survive phone compression. Remember, the line strips out deep bass and crisp highs.

Genres that work well on phone systems:

• Light acoustic guitar: friendly, safe for almost any business
• Soft piano: ideal for medical, legal, and financial brands
• Mid-tempo pop instrumentals: great for retail and fitness
• Simple jazz: works for restaurants and boutique companies
• Ambient pads: best for counseling and wellness settings

Avoid heavy bass, busy percussion, and big orchestral swells. Those elements turn to sludge through a G.711 codec. Simple melodies in the vocal frequency range survive the trip.

Best Practices: The On-Hold Messaging Process

The on-hold messaging production process runs in five steps, from strategy to deployment. Skipping steps is how you end up with my 2017 dental disaster. So follow the sequence, even for a small project.

→ The flow: Strategy → Script → Voice → Music → Production. Budget roughly two weeks start to finish.

Step 1: Consultation and Strategy

Strategy comes before any writing. Sit down with a script consultant, or just your team, and define what the audio must accomplish. Goals drive everything downstream.

Run that first consultation like a discovery meeting: surface the caller’s real goals before anyone writes a line.

Ask these questions first:

• What do callers ask most when they finally reach us?
• Which offer or service deserves the spotlight right now?
• How long does our average caller actually wait?
• What should a caller do after hearing this?

In my experience, this meeting saves more money than any other step. Because rewriting a script costs nothing, but re-recording a finished production costs plenty.

Step 2: Professional Scriptwriting

Scriptwriting turns your strategy into spoken words. Write for the ear, not the eye. Short sentences, plain words, and one idea per message block.

At its core, this is sales scripting aimed at the ear instead of a live prospect.

Structure each block as hook, value, then call to action. For example:

• Hook: “Tired of repeat data entry?”
• Value: “Our portal saves your details automatically.”
• Action: “Ask about it when we connect.”

Together, that’s a complete 10-second unit.

Read every line out loud before approving it. If you stumble, the voice talent will too.

Step 3: Picking a Professional Voice Talent

Voice selection deserves real auditions, not a coin flip. Request custom reads of your script, since demo reels hide weaknesses. Most talent provides a short custom sample for free or cheap.

Score each audition on three things.

First, does the tone match your brand? Second, is the pacing slow enough for phone audio? Third, would this voice still feel right after a caller hears it ten times?

That last question trips people up. Hold audio repeats, so charming quirks become annoying tics fast.

Step 4: Choosing the Right Music

Music selection has a legal side most businesses ignore completely. You can’t legally play commercial songs, Spotify, or the radio on hold. Under US copyright law, hold audio counts as a public performance, which needs a license.

Performance rights organizations handle those licenses. Specifically, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC each represent different songwriter catalogs. Playing unlicensed tracks risks fines that can reach thousands of dollars per song.

The simpler path? Use royalty-free or production music built for business use. It costs little, sounds clean through phone systems, and removes the legal risk entirely.

Step 5: Production and Delivery

Production means mixing the voice and music into one finished file. The voice should sit clearly above the music, with the music ducking under every spoken line. Then comes mastering for the phone environment.

Follow this delivery checklist:

1. Mix voice 10 to 12 decibels louder than the music bed.
2. Export as 8kHz, 16-bit, mono WAV for telecom systems.
3. Set a clean loop point so the file repeats without a jarring cut.
4. Test on a real phone call before launch.
5. Finally, upload to your cloud portal or load the hardware player.

That loop point matters more than people think. A clumsy loop reminds callers, every cycle, that they’re stuck listening to a recording.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with On-Hold Messaging

On-hold messaging mistakes usually come from neglect, not bad intentions. The audio launches, everyone celebrates, and then nobody touches it for three years. Meanwhile, callers suffer through the decay daily.

I’ve audited hundreds of hold systems. Honestly, the same two failures show up again and again.

Forgetting to Update Seasonal Messages

Outdated seasonal messages are the most common failure I find. A holiday greeting playing in July tells every caller one thing: nobody here pays attention. That impression bleeds into how they judge your actual service.

It happens innocently. Someone records a “happy holidays” spot, the season ends, and the file keeps looping. Months pass before anyone notices.

The fix is boring but effective. Put a recurring calendar reminder on the first of each month: “Listen to our hold line.” Two minutes of listening prevents months of embarrassment.

Using Poor Quality Audio or Repetitive Loops

Poor audio quality frustrates callers faster than the wait itself. Distorted music, clipped voices, and hissing static all scream “we cut corners.” Short loops cause similar pain, because hearing the same 30 seconds five times feels like torture.

Watch for these specific offenders:

• Music mixed too loud over the voice
• Files compressed into crunchy, distorted mush
• Loops under two minutes for queues with long waits
• Volume levels that jump between message blocks

Aim for at least four minutes of content if your average hold time runs long. Furthermore, vary the message order between updates so repeat callers don’t memorize your loop.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

These FAQs cover the questions readers ask most about on-hold messaging. Quick answers come first, with detail after. Let’s run through them.

What does “on hold” really mean?

“On hold” means your call stays connected while the conversation pauses, usually with audio playing during the wait. The phone system parks your call in a queue until someone becomes available.

Nothing about your call drops or resets. Rather, the system holds your place in line, exactly like a ticket at a deli counter. The audio you hear fills the gap so the line doesn’t feel dead.

How long will a caller stay on hold before they hang up?

Most callers will stay on hold for about one to two minutes, and abandonment spikes around the 45-second mark. After two minutes of silence, the majority give up entirely.

Engaging audio stretches that patience a lot. Because occupied time feels shorter, callers hearing useful messages routinely wait two to three times longer. That’s why your first 45 seconds carry the most weight.

Who owns the company “Messages On Hold”?

Kym Illman founded Messages On Hold, the well-known Australian audio production company, in 1988. He started it from a spare room in Perth and still owns the business today.

The company grew into one of the largest on-hold production houses in the region. Illman also became famous separately as a Formula 1 photographer, which is quite the career combo.

What is the net worth of Messages On Hold?

Messages On Hold doesn’t publish official valuation figures, but reports place Kym Illman’s personal wealth at an estimated 50 million dollars or more. The company itself serves thousands of clients across Australia.

Take any specific number with a grain of salt, though. Private companies rarely open their books, so estimates vary by source and year.

It’s Time to Fix Your Hold Line

You made it through the full guide. So here’s the truth: on-hold messaging is one of the cheapest customer experience wins available to companies of all sizes. Your callers are already there, already listening, and already interested.

Start small this week. Listen to your own hold line, time the loop, and note what’s missing. Then fix one thing, whether that’s the script, the music, or that holiday message from last December.

You’ve got this. And hey, tell me in the comments: what’s the worst hold experience you’ve ever sat through? I’ll bet someone tops my underwater dental audio.