The problem
If you hear someone say "I love being stuck on-hold" it's because they're possessed.
Unfortunately, due to things never working 100% of the time (the human brain included) on-hold waits are inevitable. But since when did inevitability become an excuse to torture people? Life is hard enough. Why make the on-hold experience, when you're already considering arson, worse? That repeated audio ear poison wasn't even good enough to add to our MySpace pages.
So there you are experiencing a difficulty, technical or PICNIC (problem in chair not in computer) and then you're subjected to what is not even music in the public domain. Just some midi track noise produced with Windows 95.
Once customer service gets to a caller, they're often, how shall we say... peeved. Of course they are. It's just math.
The idea
What if customers were treated to a show instead?
What if once a customer service representative rescued someone from the on-hold queue, they were happy? Imagine it, if you will. Because that's exactly what I was able to do with just a few paragraphs and 30 years of writing experience.
The spellwork
Stories are magic tricks. They put images in your head, can change your mind, alter your mood.
I crafted a series of short stories and jokes around current events at the time (remember, the year was 2020. Oh who are we kidding, we all remember 2020) for a scripted phone message.
Once this was recorded and put out to the complaining customers on the other end of a 800 number, their moods improved dramatically.
It's below, so have a listen.
The Blaze Media 2020 on-hold message was a smash hit.
A message for the right wing masses who just wanted to watch their Glenn Beck specials or Louder with Crowder episodes. Man, 2020 seems like ages ago now...
But the callers loved it.
Viola
By the time a customer service rep answered, the caller was smiling and happy.
Not only were callers not subjected to "musical" mayhem, they instead got to laugh. Which they needed. Not only did customer service get to help someone who was in a cheerier mood, Blaze Media was able to communicate to its audience something small but powerful: we thought of you.
Yes, I updated this the on-hold message several times before I exited Blaze Media in 2022. At customer service's request. Read: demand.