Amy or Kiri: call centre offers an on-hold choice

CALLERS to Virgin Media are now offered the choice of on-hold music: pop, dance, urban, indie/rock or classical.

They choose with the telephone keypad.  And the company said: “Does it cut down call centre time? If someone hangs up before we’ve spoken to them, that’s a missed opportunity to answer their question or solve their problem.

“While it doesn’t reduce call time in itself, it does make waiting those few minutes that bit more acceptable.”

Virgin Media said that the system was developed with a company called Success on Hold (SoH): “This system uses our existing IVR technology along with hardware provided from SoH that sits within our call centres.

“This works by identifying which options are selected by recognising the buttons pressed…”.

A spokesman said agents aid the selection of music: “Each month they help shortlist which tracks will be offered in the following month. There is an internal intranet system so our people can vote for their top three in each category…with all the votes used to decide what the final track list for each genre will be.”

He said: “The Virgin brand is synonymous with music and offering consumer choice.  It’s often frustrating to listen to the same monotonous thing, so by letting our customers pick their own on-hold music we’re giving them some much welcomed options and variety.”

Virgin Media’s call centre at Concord Business Park, Manchester