On-Hold Message with Music: The Complete Guide

TL;DR: 70% of callers hang up after 60 seconds of silence (Snap Recordings). An on-hold phone message with well-mixed music reduces this abandonment rate and turns dead time into a useful touchpoint. This guide covers music selection, copyright, voice/music mixing and mistakes to avoid.

A prospect calls your business. Nobody picks up within the first twenty seconds. Silence. After a minute, they hang up and dial your competitor’s number.

This scenario plays out dozens of times a day at SMEs that haven’t configured their phone hold. The thing is, the problem isn’t technical. An audio message and a well-chosen piece of music are all it takes to change the game.

This guide walks through every step: choosing the music, dealing with rights, mixing, loop duration and classic pitfalls. If you’re starting from scratch, read our complete guide to professional phone messages first.

Why silence drives your callers away

70% of callers hang up after 60 seconds of silence (Snap Recordings, 2023). That number climbs even higher when the caller can’t tell whether they’re still connected or the call dropped.

On the flip side, 88% of people prefer an on-hold message to pure silence (AT&T On-Hold Survey). Sound reassures. It confirms the line is active and someone will eventually pick up.

The real impact on your business

An abandoned call is a lost potential customer. Take a medical practice that receives 80 calls a day: even a 10% abandonment rate means 8 missed calls daily. Nearly 170 per month.

The on-hold message doesn’t just keep the caller on the line. It can also:

• Inform about your hours, website or a current promotion
• Direct towards another channel (email, online form)
• Reassure about the estimated wait time
• Professionalise your company’s image

The cost of a professional on-hold message is negligible compared to the revenue lost from abandoned calls.

What makes a good on-hold message?

An effective on-hold message relies on a professional voice, fitting background music and well-placed pauses. The balance between these elements determines whether the caller stays on the line or hangs up.

The voice

The text should be short and useful. Avoid hollow phrases like “your call is important to us.” Everyone uses them, nobody believes them. Go for concrete information instead:

• “Our advisors are currently on the line. Estimated wait time: two minutes.”
• “Find our hours and services on our website.”
• “For a quote, email us at contact@yourbusiness.be.”

The tone should match your industry. A law firm doesn’t use the same register as a sports shop. For concrete examples, check our phone message script examples.

The music

Music fills roughly 60 to 70% of the loop duration. It serves as the sonic background between voice interventions. Its job: maintain a pleasant audio presence without tiring the ear.

We’ll dig into the details right below.

Pauses and transitions

Between voice and music, transitions need to be smooth. A 1 to 2 second crossfade avoids the abrupt cuts that sound amateur. Music should never start or stop dead.

How to choose music for your phone hold?

The music choice depends on the atmosphere you want, your industry and usage rights. Too many businesses pick music on gut feeling, without thinking about the caller who’s going to hear it on loop.

Atmosphere by industry

Every industry has its codes. Here are the broad trends that work:

• Healthcare, medical practices: acoustic piano, light strings, slow tempo (60-80 BPM). The goal is to soothe patients who may already be stressed.
• Financial services, insurance: soft jazz, discreet orchestral music. It inspires trust and gravitas.
• Retail, shops: instrumental pop, positive music. A faster tempo (100-120 BPM) creates an impression of energy.
• Tech, startups: ambient electronic, lo-fi. Modern without being intrusive.
• Real estate: warm acoustic, guitar or piano. The idea is to create a sense of comfort.

What to avoid in every case

Some music choices are universally bad for phone hold:

• Music with lyrics: the singer’s words clash with the voice message. The brain tries to follow two texts at once — it doesn’t work.
• Polarising genres: hard rock, opera, reggaeton. You’ll put off a good chunk of your callers.
• Overly familiar tracks: if the caller recognises the song, they focus on it instead of listening to your message. And the licensing costs a fortune.
• Silence between tracks: a 3-second gap with no sound and the caller thinks the call dropped.

Copyright: SACEM, SABAM and royalty-free alternatives

Using commercial music on phone hold is subject to copyright. In Belgium, SABAM manages the rights; in France, SACEM. Ignoring this obligation exposes your business to fines.

Three options are available.

Music options comparison table

Criterion	Royalty-free music	SACEM/SABAM licence	Personal upload
Cost	0 to 50 EUR (one-time purchase)	100 to 300+ EUR/year by size	0 EUR (if you’re the author)
Quality	Variable, good catalogues available	Known tracks, studio quality	Depends on the production
Rights	Included in catalogue licence	Mandatory annual royalty	No royalty if original creation
Legal risk	None if licence respected	None if declaration filed	None if 100% original
Variety	Catalogues of 500 to 50,000+ tracks	The entire global repertoire	Limited to your compositions
Updates	Easy, switch tracks at will	Each track must be declared	Requires new production

Option 1: royalty-free music

This is the simplest choice for SMEs. You purchase a one-time licence that covers phone hold use. No annual royalty, no declaration.

Specialised catalogues offer tracks composed specifically for telephony: smooth loops, no sudden crescendos, stable volume. Exactly what phone hold needs.

Watch out for the term “royalty-free”: it doesn’t mean “free of charge.” It means you don’t pay recurring royalties once the licence is acquired. Always verify that the licence covers “on-hold” or “telephony” use.

Option 2: SACEM/SABAM licence

If you want to use a well-known track, you need to go through SACEM (France) or SABAM (Belgium). In practice, this means an annual declaration and a royalty payment calculated based on your company size and number of phone lines.

For an SME of 10 people in Belgium, expect between 150 and 300 EUR per year from SABAM. The rate varies depending on the number of phone extensions and message duration.

This option makes sense for brands that want to associate their hold experience with a specific track that’s part of their sonic identity.

Option 3: custom composition or upload

You can also compose your own music or hire a composer. You own the rights, nothing to declare.

Another possibility: upload an audio file you already own. This applies if you’ve had a jingle or custom sonic identity produced.

The risk here is quality. A poorly produced or badly looped track will sound amateur and hurt your image rather than help it.

Volume and mixing: the voice/music balance

Mixing is the most underestimated step. A perfectly written message recorded with a flawless voice will be useless if the music drowns out the voice. Or if the music is so low you can barely hear it.

The basics of telephony mixing

Telephony compresses the audio spectrum. A standard phone call’s bandwidth runs from 300 Hz to 3,400 Hz — well below CD quality. Everything outside this range gets cut or distorted.

In practical terms, what does that mean?

• Deep bass disappears. A bass-heavy track (hip-hop, EDM) will sound hollow over the phone.
• Highs are attenuated. Cymbals and vocal sibilants lose clarity.
• Midrange frequencies dominate. That’s where the human voice sits, and that’s where music can clash.

Recommended levels

For a proper telephony mix, aim for these ratios:

• Voice: -16 LUFS (main level)
• Music under voice: -26 to -30 LUFS (10 to 14 dB below the voice)
• Music alone (transitions): -20 to -22 LUFS

The principle is simple: when the voice speaks, the music takes a back seat. When the voice stops, the music comes up slightly. This mechanism is called “ducking” and can be configured in any audio mixing software.

Fades and transitions

Fades prevent harsh cuts. Apply:

• Music fade-in: 1 to 2 seconds
• Fade-out before voice: 0.5 to 1 second
• Crossfade between sections: 1 second minimum

For a professional result, the music should never stop completely under the voice. It drops in volume but remains as a subtle bed. This musical backdrop gives the whole piece a pleasant continuity.

For details on export formats suited to your phone system, see our PBX audio format guide.

What’s the right duration for the hold loop?

The optimal loop length sits between 2 and 3 minutes. Long enough to avoid becoming repetitive too quickly, short enough to produce without blowing the budget.

Sample structure for a 2 min 30 loop

Segment	Duration	Content
Introduction	15 s	”Thank you for holding, an advisor will take your call shortly.”
Music	30 s	Instrumental track
Info message 1	15 s	Hours, website or specific service
Music	30 s	Instrumental track
Info message 2	15 s	Promotion, event or alternative channel
Music	30 s	Instrumental track (loop back to start)
Total	2 min 15

This structure alternates voice and music at regular intervals. The caller receives useful information roughly every 45 seconds, which maintains their attention without overwhelming them.

Why not longer?

Beyond 3 minutes, you have a wait time problem, not a message problem. If your callers are regularly waiting more than 3 minutes, rethink your call handling capacity (number of agents, queue management, automatic forwarding) rather than extending the loop.

A 5-minute message playing on repeat will exhaust even the most patient callers. A short, well-designed loop beats a long message that ends up annoying people.

The 5 mistakes that kill your phone hold

Poorly received on-hold messages don’t usually suffer from a lack of budget or tools. They’re design errors, and you find them everywhere.

1. Music too loud, drowning out the voice

Mistake number one. The business picks a track they like, sets it at the same volume as the voice, and nobody can understand a thing. If the caller has to strain to catch what the message says, it’s failed.

The fix: lower the music by 10 to 14 dB below the voice and enable automatic ducking.

2. Identical repetition with no variation

Hearing “your call is important to us, please hold” three times in 2 minutes is the fastest way to make someone hang up. Vary the messages between musical segments. Give different information with each voice intervention.

3. Aggressive advertising

Some businesses turn the hold into a sales pitch: “Discover our exceptional offer, enjoy 30% off…” The caller is already trying to reach you. They want to talk to someone, not be sold a product.

A discreet mention of a service or new feature works fine. A full-blown sales argument doesn’t.

4. Music loop too short

A 15-second excerpt playing on loop becomes torture after 30 seconds. The human ear detects repetition very quickly, and irritation rises just as fast.

Use at least 30 seconds of music between each voice intervention. Make sure the track loops naturally, with no audible click or cut.

5. Degraded audio quality

An MP3 file compressed to 64 kbps, converted three times, uploaded to a PBX that recompresses it: the result is sonic mush. Always start from a quality source file (WAV 16-bit, 8 kHz minimum for telephony) and do only one conversion to your phone system’s final format.

How to create your on-hold message in practice

Four steps are enough: write the script, choose the voice and music, mix everything together, export in the right format.

Script writing. Write 2 to 3 short messages (15-20 seconds each). One message = one single piece of information. Read aloud to check the rhythm.

Voice selection. Two options: a professional voice actor (150 to 400 EUR per session) or an AI-generated voice (convincing result, ready in minutes). For a greeting message or an on-hold message, the latest AI voices are hard to tell apart from a studio recording.

Mixing. Combine voice and music following the levels described above. Apply ducking, fades, and normalise the result between -16 and -20 LUFS.

Export. Export in the format required by your PBX (usually WAV 8 kHz mono u-law or MP3). Test in real conditions: call your own number and listen to the result on a mobile phone.

Platforms like VoiceLab let you complete all four steps directly online, with no audio software to install.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to pay SABAM/SACEM rights for hold music?

Yes, if you use commercial music (signed artists, well-known tracks). In Belgium, SABAM charges an annual royalty calculated based on your number of phone lines. To avoid these fees, use royalty-free music whose licence covers telephony use.

What’s the ideal duration for an on-hold phone message?

The complete loop should last between 2 and 3 minutes. This allows you to alternate 2 to 3 voice messages with musical segments without becoming repetitive. Beyond 3 minutes of regular hold time, the issue isn’t the message but the call handling capacity.

What audio format should I use for a phone system?

Most PBXs and IP phone systems accept WAV (8 kHz, 16-bit, mono) or MP3. Some systems require u-law format (G.711). Check your phone system’s specifications before exporting. A file that’s too compressed (MP3 below 128 kbps) will lose clarity, especially on the voice. Our PBX audio format guide details the specs by brand.

How do I know if my on-hold message is effective?

Measure the abandonment rate (calls hung up during hold) before and after changing the message. If your PBX provides call statistics, compare over 2 to 4 weeks. A 10 to 20% reduction in abandonment rate is a common result after implementing a professional on-hold message with fitting music.

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Sources: Snap Recordings (2023), AT&T On-Hold Survey, SABAM.be, SACEM.fr, ITU-T G.711 (telephony bandwidth specification).