We’ve all been there, desperately trying to get through to a company to discuss important issues such as missing payments, incorrect deliveries or just generally awful customer service, and you’re put on-hold. Being on-hold is fine, it’s understandable that you would need to be transferred to the correct department, and yes, you do want your complaint dealt with by the right people, but when your riled up and ready to burst, being on -hold for approximately ten years or more, is not what you want. To make matters worse, rather than just allow you to sit there in silence and gather your thoughts for the conversation ahead (you really do have some top class moaning to do) you are subjected to songs you didn’t even know still existed, usually played out in a muffled, tinny sort of way that leaves you with bleeding ears (another complaint to add to the list)…
Anything Classical
God knows where people even find these clips, but any company that plays classical music to their customers whilst they are on hold have the ability to destroy a once beautiful piece of music with great success. Gone are the soft sounds of a violin, the mesmerising melody of a flute and in its place is just, well, noise. Whether it’s the crackling phone line, the unreliable signal in your kitchen or just the general bad quality recording they’ve dug up from yesteryear, you can be guaranteed a headache.
Christmas Music
‘I wish it could be Christmas everyday’ can only be played into your ear so many times before you never want to see December the 25th again. Companies also have the audacity to play Christmas music FAR too early (October/early November time) or too late when the festivities are over and all you want to do is complain about your phone bill being too high, not be reminded of the disgusting amount of food and drink you consumed, how empty your bank is and how you are yet to step into the gym.
90’s Pop
There are certain songs that you just don’t play to an angry person on hold. Classic or not, ‘Everybody Hurts’ by REM is definitely not one of them. There is absolutely no need to inform us that we have now joined a long queue of sad miserable callers, and you’re laughing at us. And no, there is no such thing as overthinking when you’re on hold. Of course there’s always room for a cheeky bit of Robbie thrown into the mix, in particularly ‘Angels’ that will take you on a brief trip down memory lane, past mistakes, long lost lovers, that kind of thing. So much so that you forget about your complaint and instead poor your heart out to the complaints department of Ryanair. Cue ‘My Heart Will Go On’ – Celine Dion’s Titanic special also seems to be a popular choice of hold music, and, ironically, we all know no-one makes it out of that one alive.
ABBA
Already an extremely marmite music choice, ABBA has some very questionable hold songs. Ok, a bit of ‘Dancing Queen’ might get some people in the party mood, maybe even ‘Mamma Mia’ if you don’t let things like phone queues get you down, but ‘The Winner Takes it All’? that’s really pushing it. Is it a competition now? Does only one lucky winner get through to customer services? Will there be a set of mastermind-like challenges before the complaints department will even acknowledge your call? Nobody knows.
Club Tunes
Fancy a bit of David Guetta whilst you prepare to completely rip apart Sky for giving the same slow service you have complained about every month for the past year? Or maybe a bit of Alesso whilst you’re patiently waiting with a cup of tea to speak to someone from ASDA because your food delivery contained out of date items? Somehow the two don’t really fit together. Whilst such music tends to generally invoke a good mood in people, there is definitely a time and a place, and the on-hold queue for angry customers is definitely not it. To make matters it loops, over and over again. Anyone would think they don’t actually want to talk to you…
James Blunt
A study conducted a few years back showed that the most soul destroying, on-hold music of all time was James Blunt’s infamous 2005 hit ‘You’re Beautiful’. Whilst many may see this as one of the top tunes of all time, it is notoriously repetitive and whiney and could probably have the ability to turn an innocent caller on-hold into a suicidal mess. There is no way to avoid it either if you want to eventually get through, although resisting the urge to hang up is strong. Very strong.