Short, clear and concise phone messages are an extremely effective way to inform your customers about your products and services. Remember, your callers on hold, are only on hold for approximately 15seconds, so you're best to get straight to the point, rather than beating around the bush. Our client - Nova Institute of Technology does this perfectly; which makes sense as they have an abundance of information to get across.

Take for instance their first telephone on-hold message, they get straight to the point and in one simple sentence, they tell their callers on hold exactly what courses are on offer. In this particular phone message, there is no need to try and create a feel or a mood, it is best to get straight to the point. Better yet, callers are more likely to hear the entire phone message when they are waiting on hold, rather than just hearing part of it.

Message 1: Here at the Nova Institute we provide a range of vocational courses in Aged Care, Child Care, Electronics, Graphic Pre-Press, Multimedia and Business Management for local and international students.

Nova has utilised every single message to its maximum. Their strategy when it came to the telephone on hold message program was to stick to one vital piece of knowledge for each message. They believed by doing so they would be more likely to clearly get the message across on that particular phone message. When they called Media Messages, they clearly indicated to us that they don't like to leave their callers waiting on hold for too long, and therefore wanted to focus on shorter, simpler messages.

The next phone message for instance, directs their callers on hold to their website. The importance of this, is that their website has even more detailed information that the caller can search - possibly even finding the answer they were originally calling Nova for.

Message 3: You can find out more about our range of courses, study options and flexible payment options at our website. That's www dot nova institute dot net dot au.

In fact, their website is obviously an important platform for their business, and is referred to throughout the message on hold program. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in December 2010 there were over 10.4 million active internet subscribers in Australia (this figure excludes internet access through mobile handsets), so the chance of Nova's customers having access to internet is relatively high - so doesn't it make sense in trying to direct your callers to this platform?

Message 10: Did you know that you can pay all your Nova Institute fees online? Payment is easy, simply visit our website www dot nova institute dot net dot au and click on the 'Pay your fees online' link. For any other questions please stay on the line and we will be with you in just a moment. Our website again is nova institute dot net dot au.

Nova Institute of Technology is a great example of a business really fine tuning their message on hold marketing strategy. When working with them to produce their telephone on hold production, they took the time to really decide what was of the utmost importance to their callers on hold. If you want to get the most out of your phone message on hold program, consider the following questions, before filling out our creative brief.

• What are your core product / service offerings?
• What are your secondary offerings - and would this be more useful information to use in your phone messages (if they are calling, they are likely to already know about your core offerings)
• What questions to your callers often ask? Can you answer this in your on hold program?
• How should your onhold program align with the rest of your branding?
• When asked what your business does, what is the quickest and clearest way to tell them?

Don't be afraid to get your staff involved! They know your customers and the questions they are asking. They will also have their own spiel on what your business does and what it offers - and it might be a creative and entertaining way to explain your product and service offering to your customers.

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