The notion of asking the right questions is so common to good business advice that it’s practically become a cliché. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it, though: after all, figuring out which questions are the right questions can be its own project. In business, if you want to unlock the secret to questioning correctly, look at your customers, and think from their perspective.

Whether you plan for it or not, your On Hold Messaging is always On Hold Marketing, because it sends a message about who you are as a company. What do customers think when they hear silence, or cheesy muzak? Whatever they think, they think that about you. So take control of the image you are already sending, and use your messaging to sell something.

Music is the original placeholder of the On Hold world: even the clunkiest old phone systems have some kind of music built-in. By itself it’s just that – a placeholder. It doesn’t accomplish much, but it means your callers aren’t sitting in silence. That might give you the idea that the messages laid over the music are more important – but here you’d be mistaken, because the messages don’t work so great by themselves either.

You need the whole package to succeed, and here’s why: