UPDATE: I have had this unit for almost 2 years now. It is connected to a UPS battery backup. I has literally been running non-stop since I set it up over a year and a half ago.
In the first instance, we work closely with you to better understand the process you expect your staff to follow and can offer guidance on best practice and identify any obvious issues before we even begin. Once we start analysing your calls, we will simply listen to real customer and prospect calls and measure both the ‘process’ and ‘experience’ aspects. You can then expect to receive detailed, monthly reporting that allows you to quickly understand your current performance and identify where you need to be and how to get there, so you’ll be one step closer to achieving your business goals.

It seems pretty self-explanatory: on-hold messages are messages that play “on hold” over your telephone system. These professionally produced recordings are also an integral part of your company’s marketing strategy. By providing timely, relevant information about your business, an on-hold messaging program reinforces current marketing campaigns and builds brand recognition. This in turn increases call retention by improving the caller experience. To top it all off, it also increases sales by targeting key demographics.
So while this loss of quality is fine for regular conversations where it's just people speaking, if you're planning on piping music down the telephone line, you need to remember that the audio quality will, at best, be around 24 times worse than what you'd hear on a CD.