What is music on hold?
Music on hold is the audio a caller hears when they are placed on hold or waiting in a queue, instead of silence. It can be a piece of royalty-free music, a recorded spoken message, or a simple hold tone. Its job is straightforward: to reassure the caller that the call is still connected and that someone will be with them shortly, rather than leaving them wondering whether the line has gone dead.
Music on hold, defined
Music on hold, often abbreviated to MOH, is any audio a phone system plays to a caller who is waiting. It fills the silence when a call is transferred to a queue, when an agent presses the hold button, or when a caller is waiting for someone to pick up. The term "music" is traditional; the audio itself does not have to be a piece of music. A spoken recorded message, a simple tone, or a combination of the two all count as on-hold audio.
The concept has been part of business telephony for decades, but it matters just as much on a modern cloud phone system as it did on an old office switchboard. The underlying problem it solves has not changed: silence during a hold is ambiguous, and ambiguous silences make callers hang up.
Why silence is the enemy
When a caller on hold hears nothing, they have no way to know whether the call is still live. Most people's instinct, after five or ten seconds of silence, is to assume they have been cut off. They hang up and either call back, wait and call back later, or give up entirely. The business loses the call it was trying to handle. The caller loses time. Neither is a good outcome.
Hold audio removes that ambiguity completely. A caller who hears music or a recorded message knows instantly that the call is still active. They are no longer guessing; they are simply waiting. Studies on caller behaviour consistently show that people wait significantly longer when they hear something rather than nothing, and that they are less frustrated afterwards even when the wait itself was the same length.
There is also a secondary benefit: on-hold audio can be useful in its own right. A recorded message can tell callers your website address, your opening hours, or that you have a new service they may not know about. That is time a caller would otherwise spend in silence, turned into a brief moment of useful information.
Types of on-hold audio
Businesses choose from three broad approaches, sometimes in combination.
| Option | Good for | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty-free music | Any business wanting pleasant hold audio without ongoing licence costs | Wide range of styles available; no PPL/PRS licence needed |
| Hold tone | Simple setups where any audio is better than silence | Functional rather than polished; callers know they are on hold but nothing more |
| On-hold message | Businesses wanting to inform or reassure callers during the wait | Can include opening hours, website, promotions, or estimated wait time; often layered over music |
A note on music licensing
If you want to play commercially released music to your callers, the licensing position in the UK is worth understanding before you start. Playing a commercial recording to callers is a form of public performance, and the rights holders, both the record label and the songwriters, are entitled to a share of revenue for that use. In practice this means you may need a licence from PPL (covering the recording) and from PRS for Music (covering the composition).
For most small businesses the easiest path is simply to avoid commercial recordings altogether. Royalty-free music is widely available, often free or low cost, and requires no ongoing licence arrangements. Alternatively, a recorded spoken message sidesteps the question entirely: there is no music, no recording rights and no composition rights to consider. Many businesses find a clear, professionally recorded message is more valuable to callers than background music in any case, because it gives them something to listen to rather than something to tune out.
Music on hold in a call queue
Hold audio becomes particularly important when callers are waiting in a call queue. A queue may hold a caller for seconds or for several minutes. Without any audio, every second of that wait feels uncertain. With a consistent hold track, callers settle into the wait and are far more likely to still be there when an agent becomes free.
Queue hold audio can also carry periodic spoken announcements, for example telling callers their approximate wait time or their position in the queue. This kind of message requires your phone system to support dynamic announcements, which modern cloud systems handle as a configurable option. Even without dynamic announcements, a static recorded message that acknowledges the wait and thanks the caller for holding goes a long way.
How Voxora supports music on hold
Voxora's cloud phone system supports music on hold for both held calls and callers waiting in a queue. You configure the hold audio from your Voxora account, where you can upload a royalty-free track or a recorded message. The same setting applies whether a caller is placed on hold by an agent or arrives at a busy queue and is waiting for the next available person.
The configuration is straightforward: you are not editing a phone box or speaking to an engineer. You make the change in your portal and it takes effect for all held callers on that number or queue going forward.
Frequently asked questions
What is music on hold?
Music on hold is the audio a caller hears when they are placed on hold or waiting in a queue, instead of silence. It can be a piece of royalty-free music, a recorded spoken message about your business, or a simple hold tone. The primary purpose is to reassure callers that the call is still connected and that someone will be with them shortly.
Why does music on hold matter?
Silence during a hold is unsettling. Many callers interpret complete silence as the call having been cut off and hang up, losing the business a potential customer or leaving a query unanswered. Hold audio removes that ambiguity, reassuring the caller the line is still active. Research consistently shows that callers wait longer and abandon less when they hear something rather than nothing.
Do I need a licence to play music on hold?
If you play commercially released chart music to callers, you may need licences from PPL and PRS for Music in the UK. The simplest way to avoid this is to use royalty-free music, which is available from a range of sources and does not require ongoing licence fees, or to record spoken on-hold messages instead. Many businesses find that a spoken message is more useful to callers than music in any case.
What is the difference between music on hold and an on-hold message?
Music on hold refers broadly to any audio played to a waiting caller, including music and spoken content. An on-hold message is specifically a recorded spoken announcement, for example telling callers about your opening hours, your website, a current promotion, or their estimated wait time. Many businesses combine both: a music bed with periodic spoken messages layered on top.
Does Voxora support music on hold?
Yes. Voxora supports music on hold for calls placed on hold and for callers waiting in a call queue. You can configure the hold audio from your Voxora account. This can be a royalty-free music track or a custom recorded message, giving you control over what callers hear while they wait.
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