voip phone on hold

VOIP phone

A professionally produced on hold message for your VOIP system can help establish your brand and enhance company image.

If you are using a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) phone system or Hosted PBX system we can help you maximize all the technology that these systems provide.  A VOIP system uses the Internet to make and route calls through a series of web connected routers.

The great news is that you won’t have to purchase any additional equipment to use Please Hold Advertising on your VOIP phones!  Saving you a few hundred bucks! Since the system is all software based with no PBX box or “central control unit”, commonly associated with analog or hybrid PBX systems, we simply provide your on hold message in a MP3 or .wav format.  This file can be easily loaded into your VOIP account through a web portal or your provider can load it for you.

You can listen to on hold message for VOIP phone systems audio samples here.

Please Hold Advertising will prepare your on hold message and convert it to the correct .wav or mp3 format that your VOIP system requires.  We have helped hundreds of customers that use such VOIP providers such as:

Ring Central, OnSIP, Vocalocity, Vonage, Windstream,  Asterisk, NexTiva,  Grasshopper, ipfone, UsVox, Voiceware, Nexogy, MyPBX,  8 x 8,  and many more.

Something limitations you should know about and how VOIP phone systems plays back an on hold message.

upset lady on phone smallThe on hold message will play from the beginning every time you press the hold button on your VOIP phone.  So your caller will hear the on hold message from the beginning every time he or she is put on hold.    This is true of all VOIP or virtual hosted PBX systems.  The reason for this is that the system is software based and stores the on hold message in a .wav or .mp3 audio format.  When you press the hold button on your phone, it sends a command to the software to play the on hold message file.   The file is started from the beginning every time this command is executed.

A drawl back of this reality is that most of your callers will only ever hear the first 5 to 20 seconds of your 2 to 3 minute on hold message.   This increases the likelihood that your message on hold will become repetitive to callers.   So It would be important that you make sure to include the most valuable information about your company in the first 60 seconds of the on hold message.

One solution to the VOIP on hold message repeat blues.

One method we have been using to help alleviate this issue is to edit the original hold message into separate, smaller recordings.   This way you can upload different parts of the original 2-3 minute hold message to your voip system at regular intervals to help keep the information fresh for callers.   We recommend you upload a different part or section of your message every 1-2 weeks.  And perhaps more often if your business has many repeat callers within a short time frame.  Of course this will require an effort on your part or the part of your Voip provider to log into your account and upload these different messages.

To VOIP or not to VOIP.  That is the question.

Every single day we get calls from customers about recommendations on whether they should switch to a VOIP, Cloud, Hosted PBX or to some other Internet based phone system.  Here is one of the best articles we have found that breaks it down and can help you make the right decision by Business New Daily.  If you are considering cutting the cord to your traditional land line phone system, then you should read this article too.

Converting Audio Files for VOIP phone systems

Depending on your VOIP phone system, you may need to convert an on hold message or voice greeting from say an .mp3 audio file to a .wav format.  Well we have a great tip for you today!  Try using an audio converter program like Switch by NCH Software.  In fact you can download the FREE version for Windows for non- commercial use and it does not expire!  Plus it includes the most common audio file formats.  This great little program is a fast and reliable way to convert audio files for telephony applications.  We’ve been using it for years.

I went ahead an made this short video giving an overview of how we use Switch to convert audio files for voip phone systems.