We all hate being on-hold waiting to talk to an (usually) intelligible human being that could help with your bill or cellphone minutes. At best, you hear the most non-offensive generic elevator music and at worst, you hear repeated advertisements and propaganda about the company's new line of credit cards. What if you could pick you own music?

I'm NOT suggesting another voice menu that allows you to select the music you want to wait on ("press one for reggae, press two for jazz, etc..."). By the time you're ready to wait, you probably navigated through four or five different questions, and the last thing you want to do is answer another one.

Instead, just pick your favorite music when you sign up for your credit card or your bank account. They'll have your phone number, so by using caller ID, they can match the phone call with the account ID and play the right kind of music.

Of course setting up such a system will cost money, and since the call center industry is very cost sensitive (why many are going to India), customer satisfaction is probably not a justifiable cause. Instead, let the music industry pay for it. By knowing someone's musical tastes, you can stream new music from the genre as advertisement. Is the user a fan of R&B? play the newest Amy Winehouse tracks. Alternative? How about the newest White Stripes tunes?

While one could, instead, run a continuous stream of advertisements, that will ultimately irritate the customers and make them more combative (you know the kind) when a person finally picks up on the other side. The best advertisements make people happy as much as it informs them.

Labels: music