I am 20 minutes into listening ANZ's hold music, and it's very low quality, the sound distorts, and every couple minutes they stop the music the say "We apologise for the continuing delay".
Why is there no tech companies saving us from all these nightmare?
All the things one has to do to get their home loan approved?
What you play in the Toyota showroom may not be appropriate for a bank.
I wish we had decent music in the showroom lol gotta please the masses!
Is it just your stock standard elevator music or none at all? I haven't been into a dealerships for a while I cant remember if there was music softly playing in the background.
@farknos: Illegal, what? Nothing illegal about it.
APRA will want to hit you up for licensing fees, however.
Very interesting video.
They're trying to prevent customers from calling them.
^ This or they are using old hardware to process the audio or misconfiguration in their VOIP management software.
Make it as painful as possible in the hope people will give up.
The sound distorts because the tape (or whatever) is getting worn out through excessive use.
If your call is going to cost them, ie, you're not buying something or a customer that attracts big bucks, you're going to hear a lot of crappy music.
If you're calling to take out a home loan, you will get first class service.
It's all subtle psychology.
Audio bandwith! The telephone system will cut off certain frequencies so you hear crap.
I actually kinda dig the claps and 90s new age vibes in this one.
Hearing this triggered a primal fight-or-flight response somewhere deep in my brain.
Good music might mean you actually stay on hold, instead of giving up and hanging up.. Companies do not want to deal with your issue
Is it the one that sounds like a nursery rhyme tune being played off a baby’s crib mobile? That one has to be the worst.
I use to work customer service for a courier company where Bing Lee was one of our clients, their hold music was outtakes from the ads with Lionel Lee and Yenda Lee, they were quite entertaining.
I would have to call a lot of places and most had that same weird hold music except for Bing Lee and the odd place that had the radio.
Because it's Australia.
Can't you just request a callback? That's what I do.
because its cheap, like no staff in stores, tills etc.
I still have flashbacks to Kogan Mobile and multiple hours of Hall & Oates’ ‘Maneater'…..
It’s just the background music they used to play on the “what happened in the last hour” highlights during the Bathurst 1000.
I can't remember the last time I called a call centre. Change all your providers to companies who actually use email and webchat :)
So you hang up lol
Money. I imagine that a lot of the lines people call are either support, or enquiry lines, in which case the company already has your money, and so doesn’t want to spend virtually anything on hold music, because most of the time people forget the quality, or even nature of what hold music was being played during a call.
Shopping centres, clothing stores, and grocery stores for example could play completely royalty free music in their stores but when it’s a sale front they want to ensure their customers are engaged, relaxed, and happy, so they try and play as ‘on-trend’ music as possible to suit their clientele.
Another aspect is playing quiet, relaxing music so that the people waiting on hold have time to compose themselves, and are artificially relaxed. I mean, sure it doesn’t always work, but ideally you wouldn’t play something like Mudvayne’s “Dig”, Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning”, or even AC/DC’s “TNT” because you don’t want to rev angry customers up.
But I think a lot of it is not wanting to pay royalty’s for music when it’s in so many respects a foregone conclusion that you’ve already got the customers money.
Blame APRA. They charge stupid amounts of money to use real music.
Can confirm. Was just on hold with ANZ for 35 minutes. Hold music is rubbish. Cuts in and out, is crackly and sometimes disappears altogether.
It's really terrible so that you will hang up.
Centrelink's recently replaced classical music which was played on an endless loop was scientifically composed to make callers hang up.
However, some callers actually went insane and some climbed trees and threw fruit at police.
Wait is that why liquor stores and mental health services play classical music outside?
If you want bad music, call Fastway couriers, don't worry they won't answer your call anytime soon so it's safe to just call and listen to the crappy music they play with the weird apologies…
03 9320 8100
Low quality distorted sound seems like it's just a 20 year old system nobody wants to pay to update.
In terms of song choice, seeking something inoffensive to everyone will mean nobody actually enjoys the music.
True, they should really replace it with "My Neck, My Back"