“As part of your on hold package, we can offer you a discounted backup price when ordered at the same time. Once you are connected, please ask your adviser for full details.”
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Due to general sloppiness when it comes to setting the volume level for music on hold, a form of distortion known as “clipping” can appear, and regularly does if you’re willing to believe personal anecdotal evidence. If you want to know about the science behind clipping, then Wikipedia will tell you everything you need to know, but for those of us who have things to get on with, we can get by just knowing that when something is played too loud down a phone line, the sound starts to distort and sound really horrible.

“The human brain reacts differently to different types of music, eliciting very specific emotional, physical, and behavioral responses, almost as if music were a map, communicating emotions to a brain even better than words. As in conversation, different inputs stimulate nearly all of the brain.”
In an ideal world you’d never put a caller on hold, but since most of the time that’s not a reasonable expectation for those tasked with receiving calls, your hold button is necessary. And, when it comes to your business, silence is not golden. Dead air on the other end of the line is not only a waste of a golden opportunity, it can leave callers frustrated, questioning whether or not you’re still even on the line.