The idea of creating a custom on-hold message may sound daunting, but advancements in technology have made it a lot easier in the last few years. In its simplest form, all you need is an audio file. Before you start, check with your IT support team or phone system vendor to see if there are any special requirements you need to be aware of.
For those still using analogue or digital phone systems, voice on ISDN circuits has a bandwidth of around 4000Hz. The audio from an analogue phone is sampled at 8000Hz, and because of the nyquist theorem, must be low-pass filtered to 4000Hz. So any frequencies in the audio beyond 4000Hz are lost. Interestingly, the human ear and mind are good at recognising human speech, so this is considered "toll-quality" voice, i.e. good enough to pay for. This is the reason why certain vocalised letters are difficult or impossible to tell apart on the phone. For example, the differences between B, P, T, C, etc. are almost entirely above 4000Hz.

We provide a variety of male and female professional broadcast announcers who can cover a range of voicing styles. Click here to have a listen.
So, given that hold music is such a powerful potential source of frustration, why do companies continue to get it wrong? Reading the articles that are out there, there seems to be a lot of speculation regarding the best choice of music to placate or even entertain customers while they wait in your queue. Some common suggestions include “Hanging On The Telephone” by Blondie, or Lionel Richie’s “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”. Or how about looking up the customer’s record in your call centre CRM, grabbing their date of birth, and playing something based on their age range - pop for the under 25s and presumably something fusty for the oldies?