Hosted VoIP PBX Music On Hold Solution
Music On Hold Solution by Vulcan Telecom
Although it is called “music of hold,” the feature allows for any company message to be played also. Music or messages are uploaded as a file to the cloud for your Hosted PBX.
A PBX system's music on hold function plays music or other audio messages to callers while they are on hold. It is often utilized to offer callers with a pleasant experience as they wait to be connected to an extension or department.
When a call is placed on hold, either by the caller or the person answering the phone, music on wait is often triggered. It can be activated either automatically by the PBX system or manually by the user.
The user can adjust the music or audio message that is kept on the PBX system. Music on hold may be beneficial for organizations that get a significant frequency of incoming calls, as it can assist callers have a pleasant experience while they wait to be connected. It is also handy for firms that wish to give callers with information or marketing messages while they are on wait.
Music on hold is a useful tool for your business. Above all, music and/or messaging improve the chance of the consumer staying on wait until the call is completed. Your message may strengthen branding and allow you to "toot your own horn." The message might be informative about the items or services available. It's also a chance to cross-sell or upsell. Finally, enjoyable music makes time fly by.
Overall, the music on hold feature of a PBX system is a useful tool for improving the caller experience and providing information or marketing messages to callers while they are on hold. It can be customized to meet the specific needs and preferences of a business, and it can help to improve the overall efficiency of the PBX system.
What are the Applications of Music on Hold in our PBX system?
- Music on hold which is intended for regular callers
- Music on hold that is intended for specific extensions
- Music on hold which is intended for call queues
Please note that the default Music on Hold is under global settings. For this reason, the volume cannot be increased or decreased.
Music on hold for callers
Vulcan Telecom basically provides a preset default music that can be used for Music On Hold. You can of course change this ready-made melody at will.
To do this, you need to upload your desired Music On Hold in MP3 or WAV format to the settings.
It should still be mentioned that the Music On Hold that is used for the conference bridge is fixed. For this reason, this kind of Music On Hold cannot be configured.
Chaining Queues
If, due to our needs, we have configured multiple call queues in one call flow, the system will use Music On Hold from the first queue only.
What does this mean?
Simply put - if a caller enters a downstream call queue within our configured call flow, the system will start the Music On Hold file from the point at which it was paused in the previous call queue.
Changing Auto-attendant Language
If we have such specific needs, i.e. to use Music On Hold for a specific extension, we can configure this in the system. As part of the setup, we first locate the extension we want to assign Music On Hold to.
Once we search for the extension, we will click through to a page where we can add Music On Hold to a specific extension simply by clicking on the Add Music button.
In the dialog box that subsequently opens, we use the Browse button to select the file that contains the Music On Hold we want. We then complete the process by clicking the Upload button.
Music on hold on call queues
We can easily set up Music On Hold for call queues in the system. This is the setting of audio files that are played to callers once they are queued into a call queue. These are music files to make the wait more pleasant, or audio files with information that we want to convey to the caller before the call is connected.
In Vulcan Telecom's PBX system, Music On Hold can be managed directly from the call queue configuration page. This setup can be done using the pop-up window in the call queue configuration.
Music On Hold Rules
Configuring Music On Hold from the Call Queue configuration page
Now we will discuss how to assign and set up such Music On Hold for a given call queue. To begin, on the Call Queue configuration page, click the icon for Music On Hold for a given call queue. Clicking on this icon will take us to the following settings for Music On Hold for that queue
On the Music on Hold tab, click Settings. First of all, on this settings tab we can decide whether or not we want to enable Music on Hold for the queue at all. At the same time, in this part of the configuration, we can specify whether we want Music On Hold to be selected randomly.
Of course, there is also the option to set an initial greeting. this setting is useful and allows us to, for example, play a message to the caller when they join the call queue, thanking them for calling our company and asking them to be patient while waiting for the next available agent, while also offering them the opportunity to get additional information by telling them the address of our website.
Our system allows this initial greeting to be recorded as an audio file from our local storage, or we can choose to record as with voicemail and auto attendant greeting. Once we have made our choice of recording, we click Save.
For the record, the recorded greetings will not appear in the Music on Hold list. However, it is still possible to manage these introductory greetings by clicking on the Settings button. In this setting, we can then, if present, play and review this opening greeting. Uploading a new opening greeting file will overwrite the old opening greeting file.
Music files for Music On Hold are added by clicking Add Music in the settings. In the following dialog box, you need to search for a music/audio file stored locally on your computer. This is the music file we want to upload. The type of this uploaded file must be .wav or .mp3.
Once we have found the desired music file for our Music On Hold in the local storage, let's click on Upload.
In addition to being able to play Music On Hold randomly, it is also possible to set the order of the individual audio files we have selected and uploaded for Music On Hold. So if we require a specific order for these files, we can change this order on the file page for Music On Hold according to our requirements and preferences.
The system will then simply prompt us to approve these changes. Once we confirm these changes, the new Music On Hold file order will be saved. Therefore, to make these changes, click on the Save button.
It is important to remember that the music files we intend to play to our customers need to be selected in such a way that we have underwritten copyright and royalty payments. Therefore, we recommend using only generic music files without royalties and copyrights.
If we play audio files without secured royalties and copyrights, we expose ourselves to the risk of legal sanction. This includes, in this case, payment of up to $150,000 and imprisonment.
Therefore, please do not hesitate to contact our experts at Vulcan Telecom who will be happy to tell you where it is possible to get music files of Royalty Free music, like the ones on Bensound (https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music).