Do you hang up, now?
Please hold the line Nearly all of us known what it’s like to be put on ‘musical hold’ call almost any customer service number, and you can expect to hear at least a few bars of boring elevator music before an operator picks up. The question is: do you hang up or do you keep holding? That may depend on your gender and what type of music is playing, according to research reported by University of Cincinnati Associate Professor of Marketing, James Kellaris. Kellaris, who has studied the effects of music on consumers for more than 12 years, teamed with Sigma Research Management Group to evaluate the effects of ‘hold music’ for a company that operates a customer service line. The research tested four types of ‘on-hold’ music with 71 of the company’s clients, 30 of them women. Light Jazz, classical, rock and the company’s current format of adult alternative (a mix of contemporary) were all tested. The sample included individual consumers, small business and large business segments. Pa