Uncategorised

You had me at hello

One of the questions we get asked often is what greeting should be used when speaking and writing to customers.

Although we all seem sensitive to what greetings should be used (whether we’re greeting or being greeted) the rules for choosing them seem unclear at best. What used to be thought of as appropriate, for example a traditional ‘Dear Sir’, might now come across as too stuffy when showing warmth and being down to earth is what’s required by many brands. Equally a simple ‘Hi’ might be ok when answering a question, but for some sectors and reasons for contact (for example banking and answering a complaint) a little less familiarity might be needed.

Why are greetings a particularly sensitive issue? It may be because of the primacy effect (what we hear first we tend to remember) and politeness theoristssee it as the beginning of the negotiation of the all-important current ‘relationship’ we have with the person we’re writing or talking too.

In this blog, the first of two on the subject, we’ve looked at where customers find greetings inappropriate (i.e. which service channels). We’ve also delved into the data about email service to find out what bearing demographic factors have, such as age and gender.

As previously, the research was carried out for us by well-known market researchers ICM with a representative sample of 2000 people in the UK.

In the next blog we’ll look at what greetings are preferred, what happens if you use something that’s inappropriate and give you our tips for the perfect greeting.


The phone and email are where consumers most often feel that they’re greeted inappropriately

Greetings Research Channel Graph

From our survey it’s clear that the phone (77%) is where customers most often feel that they’re greeted inappropriately. This isn’t an occasional thing either, with 44% saying that it happens either Every, Most or Around half the time. That’s a sobering thought.

email, Face-to-face and text were next on the list with 70% to 68% saying they’ve been greeted in a way that they didn’t find fitting.

Interestingly it was the newer channels — social media and web chat (in particular) — that faired the best. One school of thought was that customers would be less likely to find greetings improper for the older channels (phone, email and face-to-face) as the precedents for these have been around longer. But, this was not supported by our study.


Millennials are the least likely to have a problem with email greetings

Greetings Research Age Graph

It probably comes as no great surprise that the youngest age group, 18 – 24 year olds, was least likely to have a problem with email greetings (62%). But, despite the popular notion that older generations are more sensitive about how salutations are used, the two eldest age groups, 65 – 74 (70%) and 75+ (68%), were not those that topped the list. That honour was reserved for the 25 – 34, 35 – 44 and 55 – 64 groups ranging from 75% to 76%.
When it comes to email, men are more likely to feel that greetings are unsuitable

Greetings Research Gender Graph

The last thing we looked at for the email channel was the gender divide. Men (74%) were significantly more likely to find a hello inapt than women (66%). Men were also far more likely to report that they were greeted inappropriately Every or Most times (22%).Men seem to find greetings inappropriate more often than women across all channels in our study. You remember that famous scene in Jerry Maguire, where Dorothy says to Jerry “You had me at hello”? Perhaps if Dorothy had been saying hello, things would’ve turned out differently.

Research notes
ICM interviewed a random sample of 2,000 adults aged 18+ in GB, online between 18 – 22 March 2016. Surveys were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.  Further information at www.icmresearch.com.

The service email that cut costs, boosted sales and increased satisfaction

Last month we wrote about 10 Things Every Service Writer Should Know. In that blog we listed some of the best practices that make up our 4 Service Writing Rules — Credibility, Clarity, Answer and Tone (C-CAT).

This month we asked well known market researcher ICM to find out what would happen when we applied those rules to a customer service email response about a new car insurance enquiry. This is what they found:

If you’re interested in how we improved the email response, our 4 Service Writing Rules and what you can do to develop the skills of your writing team, take a look at our Writing to Improve Service — 1 Day Course.

If you’d like to find out more about how we did the research and the results, give us a call or drop us an email.

10 things every service writer should know

Over the last few months we’ve been mystery shopping and studying service emails from some of the UK’s biggest brands. We’ve also been working with well-known market researcher ICM to find out what in an email makes customers happy, buy and feel that their query’s been resolved first time.

There’ll be more about that study in our next blog. But for now here are 10 tips, taken from our research, to help you craft that perfect service email:

1. Look for what your customers really want
Good readers write the best emails. That’s because good readers understand what your customers really want. If someone says: “I’m going on holiday tomorrow, what time will my delivery arrive?” The direct question is: “what time will my delivery arrive?” But the problem is that the delivery may arrive when they’re away. A good reply would answer the question and also give a solution to the problem: “Between 9 and 6, but we can deliver to a neighbour or where you’re going if you need it for your holiday.”

Try this: Read your customer’s email at least twice (and you’ll only have to answer it once).

2. Put your answer first (and make it clear)
What customers want most is an answer to their question. So put it first in your response (save your ifs and buts for later) and make it as direct and confident as possible. Do the legwork for your customer too. Apply your terms to their situation instead of copy / pasting your Ts & Cs, or giving them a link to every FAQ answer.

Try this: To make your writing clear keep your sentences short (25 words or less) and use commonly used words (these are normally shorter too). If you want a rough guide to how easy your emails are to read, word processors like Microsoft Word have readability checkers built-in. (This blog has a readability score of 70. That’s around the reading age of a 12–13 year old and about the same as a Harry Potter book.)

3. See if you’ve created more questions

In our mystery shopping study some businesses answered our question — but raised several more. So they’d likely get another email from us (costing both them and us time and money). Put yourself in your customer’s shoes, read your answer again and ask yourself: “have I created any more questions?” If the answer’s yes, answer those too.

Try this: Saying “could” or “may” can result in your customer feeling uncertain and coming back to you for further clarification. Try to be more definite and use “will” instead.

4. Meet and match your customer
Relationships are built on trust — and we find it easier to trust people who are like us. Look at how your customer has written to you. Are they formal or informal, direct or chatty? Flex your style to suit your customer’s personality and you’re much more likely to get along.

Try this: Look at how your customer greets you. If they say: “Hi”, then “Hi” back and using their first name is OK. If they start with a traditional: “Dear Sir / Madam”, then something more formal’s required.

5. Mind your tone
In service studies a helpful and friendly attitude comes top of the list of consumers’ wants. It’s strongly linked to service outcomes like satisfaction, repeat buying and advocacy as well. Attitude comes across through what you say, but also how you say it or your ‘tone of voice’.

Try this: Nowadays it’s acceptable to write the way we speak — perhaps with a little more polish and fewer uhms and errs though. This style of writing helps you to sound warm, accessible and engaged. It also gives your customer a strong sense of being in a conversation with a real person, something that creates a bond and loyalty.

6. Avoid jargon and business speak
There are lots of names (and acronyms) that mean something to everyone in your industry. But they may not mean anything to your customers. The business world has its own way of singing from the same hymn sheet. At the end of the day this kind of language isn’t everyone’s core competency, so going forward, kick business speak into the tall grass (and leave it there).*

Try this: When you have to use a legal term, or you need a quick ‘industry way’ to refer to something that comes up a lot, explain it the first time you use it.

7. Always check your spelling and grammar

Poor spelling and grammar makes your writing more difficult to understand. It’s also one of the ways that a reader will gauge how credible and trustworthy you are. So become best friends with your spelling and grammar checker (and make sure it’s set to UK not US English).

8. Say what can be done, not just what can’t
Sometimes you have to say no, sorry, can’t do it. Instead of leaving it there, try to find workarounds and alternatives. For our study we asked some insurance companies if an iPad was covered if we left it in our car. Some said no. Some said yes, but to a value less than its worth. One said: “yes, though probably not its entire value — but have you looked at your home insurance? They often cover personal possessions too.” We know where we would take our business.

9. Keep your footer brief (and read it)
Try to keep that bit of legalese at the bottom of your email as brief as possible. Consumers are naturally suspicious of small print. The more of it there is, the more they’ll think you’re trying to pull a fast one. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of what’s there and see if you can work with your legal team to make it easier to understand too.

10. Think about what the customer will do next and help them to self-serve
 
You’ve followed the tips, have crafted the perfect service email and the tip of your cursor is positioned purposefully over that send button. Stop! Imagine what your customer will actually do when they read your email. Will they go on and buy something? Or compare you with others? Your response isn’t just about answering this email. It’s also your chance to shape what happens next. If they said they want an answer before buying, then steer them to your website as the fastest and most cost effective channel to use to make their order. If they’re comparing you to others, then an offer to price match could help you close the sale. Thinking one step ahead will reduce the number of calls and emails you have to handle, make things easier for your customer and even help you sell more.

If you’d like to find out more about how these tips can become part of your writing team’s DNA, take a look at our new Writing to Improve Service — 1 Day Workshops. Or drop us an email

*Rough translation: Some people don’t understand business speak, don’t use it.

Which? best and worst brands for service – 5 spoken tone tips to keep you top of the league

It’s that time of year again. Service managers and directors across the UK are under even more pressure as Which? publish the results of their annual survey revealing the best and worst brands and call centres for customer service.

Which Likes Pic V2

Shoppers’ top 3 service likes    Source: Which? May 2015Looking at the results, ‘friendly and helpful staff’ topped the list of shoppers’ likes, followed by ‘knowledge of the product or service’ and ‘speed of service’.

When it comes to sounding friendly and helpful, tone of voice (how things are said) is key in communicating attitudes and emotions. A small change in pitch, intonation or pace can make a real difference to customer satisfaction and can even influence first call resolution.

Coaching and managing tone can seem a bit of a grey area, so I’ve got five quick tips to help your advisors ‘set the right tone’:

1. Warmth and empathy – call it a cliché, but it’s so true . . . you can hear a smile. One useful exercise is to ask advisors to record themselves (on their smartphone) talking about something they’re passionate about. And, then to record themselves speaking about something they really dislike. Listen out for tonal variations – warmth and engagement versus tension and coldness in the voice. Introducing yourself with your first name when you answer a call also shows a willingness to be accountable and friendly.

2. Confidence – using fillers like “err” and “um” or words such as “could” and “should” give a feeling of uncertainty which can lead to a call back. Be exact wherever possible, for example “you’ll get your policy documents through in the next 10 days” rather than “you should receive your policy documents in the next few days”. And, “we’re here from 9am to 5pm” instead of “we’re here all day”.

3. Clarity – think about volume, pace and articulation to make it easy for a customer to understand you. Avoid using company jargon and watch out for department names like ‘The Retentions Team’, which means something to you, but nothing to your callers.

4. Positivity – in the words of the song “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”, focus on what can be done – not what can’t. It’s worth getting advisors to come up with a list of the questions or topics they find challenging or uncomfortable to answer and create a simple desk top reference guide of positive responses.

5. Adaptability – customers have different needs so it’s useful to be able to adapt your tone. Some want a call completed quickly and will appreciate concise language and a brisk pace. Others will be happier to chat and prefer more detail and discussion.

Our Improving service with advisor tone – 1 day workshop is a great starting point and a fun, interactive way for trainers, managers and even advisors to quickly learn about the benefits of developing tone as well as new techniques and skills.

UK Calling, what you need to know about the new changes to business numbers

You probably know that on the 1st of July, Ofcom’s new rules for call charges to some numbers will be introduced. The new move – UK Calling – is designed to make it easier for consumers to understand call charges and take away some of their concerns. It’s a problem we’ve previously highlighted in the research we did with ICM. 

UK Calling will do two things:

1. It will make 0800 and 0808 numbers free to call from all landlines and mobiles. They’re already free to call from landlines, but some mobile providers charge.

2. It will mean that charges for calls to 084, 087, 09 and 118 numbers will have to be clearly stated in a specific way (more on this later).

What we think

Changes to the 0800 and 0808 numbers are good to see. Previously our research showed:

• 40% of consumers lacked confidence in their understanding of charges to 0800 numbers from landlines. 

• This rose sharply to 70% in terms of consumers’ understanding of call charges from mobiles.

• 0800 was the number most consumers felt least concerned about. Around 30% said that they’d be concerned or very concerned about it – the lowest of all the numbers surveyed.

Making 0800 and 0808 free to call from mobiles should reduce this concern further and make it the clear number of choice for organisations who want to make sure their number isn’t a barrier to service and sales.

If you use 084 / 087 / 09 / 118 numbers you’ll need to publish call charges everywhere that consumers are likely to see them. 

When it comes to letting your customers know how much they’ll be charged you’ll need to state this in a particular way as well stating that there’s:

1. An access charge – a charge that their landline or mobile provider will make.

2. A service charge – the amount that you will charge for calling that number.

We also suggest that you think about publishing your charges as the opening message on your IVR so customers hear it when they call.

You can find out more about the requirements and what you’ll need to do in the For Business section of UK Calling’s website. 

Keep in mind that 65% to 80% of consumers said they’d be concerned about calling 084 / 087 / 09 numbers – these were the numbers with some of the highest levels of concern. A concerted UK wide effort to clarify call charges for these numbers may help to reduce this concern. But because the charging regime still isn’t that simple it may lead to yet more confusion and concern. Only time will tell.

When we carried out our research perhaps the most worrying discovery was that consumers were as concerned about calling 03 numbers as they were 084 ones. UK Calling may alter how consumers feel about 084 numbers but it may not do anything to allay concerns about 03 numbers that many organisations adopted because of the Consumer Rights Directive that was introduced last year.

UK Calling applies to all sectors. But if you’re a financial services company…

This year the FCA began its consultation on what numbers should be used for financial services. Their requirements are likely to be along the same lines as those introduced for the majority of other businesses last year – something we’ve written about previously. We got in touch with the FCA this week to find out when their requirements will be published and come into force. So far they’ve said that the requirements will probably become public sometime over the summer and we’ll let you know more about this when they do.

What should you do about UK Calling? 

Here’s a quick recap of what you should be looking at:

1. Publishing 084 / 087 / 09 / 118 number charges. If you use these numbers you’ll need to inform consumers about your charges from the 1st July (in the recommended way).

2. Consider a move away from 084 / 087 / 09 numbers. Over the past two years these numbers have come in for a lot of public criticism from both consumer groups and the press. Whether clarifying call charges will help the image of these only time will tell. But as we discussed in our previous blog on the subject now might be a good time to look at alternatives such as freephone, 03 and geographic (01/02) numbers. This may be particularly relevant if you’re a financial services company.

3. Make it clear what the charges are for all the numbers you publish. Hopefully UK Calling will boost consumers’ understanding of call charges for 084 / 087 / 09 / 118 numbers. But if you use freephone, 03 or geographic numbers don’t forget to continue to make it clear what the call charges are as well. And make sure that your callers know that it’s a good thing for them. In the short term there could be a risk that UK Calling may make callers suspicious of other numbers.

Advisor tone – the words that improve service

Our recent research into advisor tone showed how just changing the way words were said (voice) improved customer satisfaction scores by 76%. We also looked at what happened when we changed some of the words (language) too.


The second test

We used the second test to see what would happen to service scores when we changed some of the language the advisor used in the original conversation. The overall approach for this test was the same as the first. If you’re interested you can read about how we ran the first study in Rob’s previous blog.

For the second study we recorded another call, changing about 10% of the advisor’s words to make them less cold / neutral and much ‘warmer’ or empathetic. Only a small proportion of the words were changed so that the structure and outcome of the call stayed the same. Have a look at our our Advisor Language Golden Rules below if you want to find out more about how we changed the language. The advisor’s voice was also warm.

Once again we asked a panel of 200+ consumers to score the call using some common service measures including Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score and Customer Effort.


Changing tone through voice and language makes an even bigger difference to service scores

Figure 1: The effect of voice (the way words were said) and language (what words were said) on service scores (higher scores are better)

An advisor’s tone of voice tells a customer something about their personality, attitudes and emotions. It’s these that actually affect service scores. Tone is just how customers come to understand them.

What ‘sets the tone’ or gives away an advisor’s attitudes and emotions? Clearly it’s the combination of language and voice. But, which has the greatest influence over service scores?

In our study, adding warm language to an already warm voice pushed all the service scores even higher, with Customer Satisfaction climbing the highest – up by 95%. However, given that just a warm voice alone increased Customer Satisfaction by 76%, in this test voice had a greater impact on service scores than language.

What we found is similar to the results of a famous (and often misquoted) study by Prof Albert Mehrabian about what most influenced a listener’s understanding when communicating emotions. Roughly summarised he found the influence was 7% language, 38% voice and 55% facial expression. Between language and voice (facial expression can’t always be clearly understood on a call) voice played the larger part.


Advisor language golden rules

When we changed the language in the call for our study we followed some of the advisor language rules that we use in our spoken tone of voice programmes and when we’re writing scripts for advisors. Here’s a quick summary of those:

1. Be warm and empathetic – it helps if advisors introduce themselves with their first name (they’ll also show that they’re willing to be personally responsible for the outcome of a call too) Using a customer’s name may help to build empathy as well. But, it needs to be handled with care. Also, think about using some of the language that the customer uses.

2. Be positive – say what can be done, not just what can’t be.

3. Be confident – utterances like err, um and erm all show a lack of confidence. As do words like may / could / should. Use positive alternatives like ‘will’ instead, for example: “you will get a confirmation letter in the post”.

4. Be clear – try to be specific if you can. For example, instead of saying: “we’re here most days”, say: “we’re here Monday to Friday”. Also, try not to use jargon that customers may not understand (it’s also possible they won’t query it as they’ll feel stupid if they do). Once again, consider using some of the terms that customers use.

5. Be active – use active rather than passive sentences. An easy way to do this is to put yourself at the front of a sentence. So, instead of saying; “the pack will be sent by us on the 14th”, say; “We’ll send the pack on the 14th”.

6. Be adaptable – not all customers are the same and it’s helpful to adapt language to suit them. For example, some customers may simply want a call completed as quickly as possible and appreciate concise language. Whereas, others may be happier to chat and don’t mind longer descriptions and more discussion.

If you want to know more about how we can help you to develop your advisors’ tone skills please get in touch.

Does an Advisor’s tone really matter?

When industry analysts ContactBabel polled Contact Centre Managers on what makes customers satisfied, ‘friendly and polite advisors’ came second only to first call resolution. Managers certainly think that an advisor’s tone is very important. But, does it matter to customers? And, what effect does it really have on satisfaction scores?


What does ‘tone’ really mean?

Tone of voice is ‘how you sound’. It’s the message that tells the listener about your personality as well as your attitudes and emotions. So it can let someone know whether you’re warm or cold, helpful or obstructive, confident or nervous. It’s present in every conversation and is conveyed through both the words you use and how you say them.


Our research

Working with our consultant psychologist we set out to shed some light on how much an advisor’s tone affects service scores. We took a real service call to a mobile phone company (about getting a replacement sim) and recorded two versions. The first had the advisor sounding neutral. The second had the advisor sounding positive and warm. In this test we wanted just to look at how ‘the way words were said’ changed service scores. So, the words within both calls were exactly the same and only the way that they were said was changed.

Then we asked a panel of 200+ consumers to score both the calls using some common service measures including Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score and Customer Effort.

We also set up an experiment to find out what happens when the advisor used warmer language too, you can read about the results of that study here.


Changing the advisor’s tone with voice made a big difference to service scores

Figure 1: The effect of ‘the way words were said’ on service scores (higher scores are better)

The results took us a bit by surprise. Only altering the way words were said ‘significantly’ improved all of the service scores with Customer Satisfaction climbing by 76%.

Customer Effort was the measure that showed the lowest improvement at around 33%, but this was still significant. The reason for this smaller increase might be that ‘effort’ is more of a ‘rational’ (e.g. how long did the call take, did the caller get what they asked for etc.) concept rather than an ’emotional’ one.

In this test we kept it very simple with a neutral tone and something positive and warm.

However, in our tone of voice training and consulting we talk more about what tones of voice have the most impact on service scores. And, what the traits of these tones are. If you’d like to know more about what tones are likely to cut and boost your service scores, and what goes into them, just get in touch.


How to Mind Your Tone – 3 steps

Our research shows that advisor tone of voice is very important and that managers are right to put it towards the top of their list of things that satisfy customers. So how can tone get the attention it deserves?

Here are some things that I think should be looked at to improve advisors’ tone and make the most of this very real opportunity to improve service scores:

1. Recruitment – Research showed Southwest Airlines that one of the things that customers wanted the most was simply warm and friendly service staff. They went away and ‘recruited for smiles’. Now they have some of the highest NPS scores of any business – not bad for a ‘budget’ airline. Take a look at how you assess candidates and see what importance you attach to a good tone.

2. Training – Invest time in training not only for advisors, but for team leaders, managers, coaches and for those scoring calls too. Also, take a look at the scripts you use and see if they’ve been written with a smile in mind. 

3. Management – What gets measured gets managed. Work with your quality and MI teams to find out if advisor tone of voice is a reliable predictor of what customer’s think of your service. And, begin measuring and managing it like any other KPI.

Feel free to get in touch if you want to know more about our tone of voice research, consulting or training.

Make your on hold funny for money

Every day in the UK about 5 million callers wait on-hold for their calls to be answered. We thought, how about using that not-so-good time for an oh-so-good cause – Red Nose Day?

We’ve been working with Comic Relief to create some FREE messages that are fun and ask your callers to get involved or donate. They feature the well-known voices of artists like Su Pollard, Redd Pepper (the Hollywood film trailer voice) and others.

The messages are absolutely FREE for you to use. Just download and use them. Please, please use them.

It doesn’t matter if you have 10 callers or 10,000 – every one could make a difference. You’ll be helping to raise much needed money for the many life changing projects that Comic Relief support.


The lovely Sue Pollard in our studio making waiting a good cause. 

This year Red Nose Day is Friday 13th of March and you’ve probably already seen some of the great publicity. With your help it could be better than ever.

What phone numbers should be used for financial services?

On the 13th of June last year new laws were introduced that meant most businesses had to provide service phone numbers charged at a ‘basic rate’. Although financial services organisations weren’t covered by the new laws the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) responded to a letter from consumer champions Which? saying that they supported the principles of the changes. And, that they would look into the possibility of asking financial services organisations to make changes.

Just before Christmas the FCA published a consultation paper that covered this area: Thematic Review on Complaints handling [TR14/18]. In Section 4 on page 22 you can read about the suggested changes for numbers and call charges.


Which new number should you choose?

Because of the amount of bad press surrounding 084x numbers some banks, mutuals and insurance companies have already stopped using these. If you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to start looking at what your options for new numbers are. If the proposals do go through you’ll definitely have to make a change.

The blogs we posted last year will be of help as the rules that were introduced for businesses back in July last year are very similar to the new FCA proposals.

The first of the blogs outlines what the options for numbers are, as well as their pros and cons.

The second summarises the market research that ICM carried out for us looking at what consumers feel about the numbers they’re asked to use and whether this alters their willingness to call.


No need to panic, but start thinking about the implications

At the moment the FCA has just published a consultation paper. So, there’s no need to alter your numbers right now. After the consultation period ends the FCA will confirm what changes will need to be made and by when. We’re guessing that this will happen some time towards the middle of this year.

As ever, if you have any questions just get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

Presley to Pavarotti and Perry – ‘well-known’ music most liked by waiting callers

In practice it’s never going to be as simple as just picking what customers say they like the most without carefully considering your situation. If you’re going to use ‘well-known’ music you’ll need to think about what tracks to choose and whether they’re suitable given things like the poor sound on phone lines, any associations that performing artists may have, wait times, your brand, lyrics and customers’ reasons for calling – the list goes on. As one of our social media followers recently pointed out, Chris Rea’s ‘Driving home for Christmas’ was not what he wanted to hear when he had to call a breakdown service during the festive season.

You’ll also need to think about how what you’ve chosen will work with messages as well. We’re still analysing the results from a study about these at the moment. But, the early signs are that some types of messages are very well liked too.


The ICM research

We asked the well respected pollsters ICM to conduct a survey with over 2000 consumers to find out what they like (and don’t like) to hear waiting for their calls to be answered.

This blog covers non-message options including several types of original artist music such a ‘Well-known popular music’ and ‘Well-known classical music’. And, other things that callers often hear whilst waiting such as: ‘News’, ‘Music by unknown contemporary artists’, ‘Classical music’ ‘Telephone system music’ (the type of music that often comes free with phone systems), ‘Silence’ and ‘Ring tones’.

So we could understand the big picture the survey was representative of 18+ adults in Great Britain in terms of gender, age, region and social grade. But, because we’ve also got a breakdown of responses by these categories, we can also spot smaller trends like preferences by age and social grade.

If you’ve a good understanding of the demographics of your callers we can use this information to create waiting experiences that better match your customers’ likely preferences.


Consumers said that they most like to hear well-known music

Figure 1: Top 3 – most ‘liked’ options

In our survey the option that most people liked was ‘Well-known popular music from any period’. This was closely followed by ‘Well-known classical music’ and ‘Well-known music from the last year’. What do these categories actually mean when it comes to artists? Maybe think of the top 3 as Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti and Katy Perry.

We also thought that it would be interesting to see if the reason for calling made any difference to consumers’ preferences. So, we asked the same question in 2 scenarios: ‘when waiting to buy something’ and ‘when waiting to get help with a product or service bought previously’. The Top 3 stayed the same for both, so preferences for both sales and service lines could be similar.

It was revealing to see that 11% of people said that well-known popular music would not only make their wait more acceptable but may make them more prepared to wait a little longer (it was the best performing of all the options). In simple terms that could mean less abandonment, something that a previous study by Leicester University also found.


Age makes a big difference to listening preferences

Figure 2: Well-known music liking by age group

We were slightly surprised to see the strong overall liking for ‘Well-known classical music’, coming in at number two in our top three. When we break the data down by age groups you can see what’s behind this: a very strong preference for it in the 55-65 and 65+ groups.

The difference between ‘Well-known popular music from any period’ and ‘Well-known popular music from the last year’ is thought provoking as well. In the younger age groups the results for both music types are very close together (you can see that they actually change position in the 35-44 group). But, the difference seems to grow steadily in the older age categories.
‘Telephone system music’ and ‘Silence’ were most likely to cause callers to hang up

Figure 3: Bottom 3 – most ‘disliked’ options

The research also asked consumers what they didn’t like to hear, and what may make them hang up. Perhaps not surprisingly ‘Silence’ was bottom of this list at 49%. But ‘Telephone system music’ was next. An alarming 28% of respondents said that they may hang up because of it. That’s worrying news for anyone who’s using music that came free with their phone system.

What does it all mean for you?There are always going to be times when a customer will have to wait. Or, if you have a call back system, may actually prefer to. Our survey shows that customers thought that well-known music would make that wait more acceptable. But, as I’ve said before, be careful. Think about your context, the actual tracks you’ll play and how you’ll use messages as well.When it comes to actually choosing well-known music there’s a huge range of artists and genres to choose from. Bear in mind the demographics of your audience – in our test age had a big influence on liking for classical music for example. We use music psychology to help identify what’s best.If you do use well-known music you’ll probably need a licence from both the PPL (formerly called Phonographic Performance Limited) and PRS (Performance Rights Society). These organisations collect royalties on behalf of the performers and writers of music so that they get paid for all their good work.Licensing can be a little complicated. If you want to mix and match tracks and / or combine music with foreground messages you’ll need to ask a licensed agent. Since MUSICLINE joined us recently we’re now the only company in the UK licensed by PPL to provide music compilations for phone lines. We’ll simplify the whole process for you, helping you to select appropriate music, dub messages and pay the royalties due.The other key point that the research highlights is that if you’re using ‘out of the box’ options that come with your phone system, be careful. ‘Silence’, ‘Ring Tones’ and ‘Telephone system music’ were the most disliked by callers with some indication that they may hang up if they hear them.

In this blog we’ve only included the big picture results as there simply isn’t room to cover everything. But, if you’d like more of the nitty gritty, or some advice on what’s most suitable for your customers, just get in touch.

Notes on the research

ICM interviewed a random sample of 2,005 adults aged 18+ in GB, online between 10th-12th October 2014. Surveys were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Further information at www.icmresearch.com.