Hold It . . . Firms Are Making Statement With Telephone Tunes

Beverly Hills office manager Rewa Soltan called her office a few months ago and was not pleased by what she heard: rock music.

The firm Soltan worked for, real estate developer Jovet Inc., played music from a local rock station for callers who were put on hold. That would not do. “We are developers of shopping centers . . . and of very, very high-end homes and to be playing rock music was not giving the right image,” Soltan said.

Now, when callers to Jovet are put on hold, they listen to Beethoven--not the Beastie Boys--and other classical masters. Classical music, Soltan says, was more in line with the image the firm wanted to project.

Executives view it as a reflection of the corporate image. Some callers regard it as annoying. And a group of music composers says it may be illegal. Yes, the telephone music that is often meant to be ignored is drawing more attention these days.

Reflects Image

Telephone music has been available for more than a decade, but its use has proliferated in the last few years with the introduction of sophisticated and relatively inexpensive telephone technology. Airlines, dentists, real estate agents, banks and bus lines all have such systems.

Choosing what music callers will hear doesn’t rank very high on the totem pole of corporate decision making. But the type of telephone music can say something about the person or company who chooses it.

“It certainly does make a statement about a company’s image,” said Jill S. Gabbe, a senior vice president at Lippincott & Margulies, a New York firm corporate identity specialist. “Somehow I can’t imagine IBM putting on Muzak when they put callers on hold.” Some take the selection of their phone music very seriously. “There’s a guy who is in charge of that--it’s not his whole job obviously,” said Greg Davy, spokesman for the Southern California Rapid Transit District. In January, RTD supervising engineer Frank Haddon sent out a memo declaring that classical music would be the transportation agency’s official phone music at all its offices. “We want to have some uniformity,” Davy said.

“You make a statement by what radio station you use,” said James A. Chalmers, president of a Phoenix real estate consulting firm. In Chalmers’ case, he prefers not to make any statement at all and has decreed his phone system will play soft rock, music he believes will offend the least amount of clients.

“By having a radio station, as opposed to Muzak or something else, you kind of duck the responsibility for the music,” said Chalmers. “I find it fairly obnoxious at times.”

Offending the least number of callers seems to be a priority for those whose job it is to select telephone music.

At the Cerritos office of Compugraphics, a maker of typesetting equipment, office manager Candy Pittman said executives at the company’s Boston headquarters “were pretty explicit as to what they wanted played. They like something around elevator music and soft rock. They feel business people would be offended by normal rock stations, which I disagree with personally.”

Many businesses have taken the safe route, turning to Muzak, the firm that supplies background music commonly heard in stores, elevators and on telephones. About 4,000 customers in the Los Angeles area pay between $35 to $40 a month for the service, and the number of telephone music subscribers has been increasing by about 20% annually, says Kerrie Confoy, manager of operations for Muzak’s Los Angeles office.

“Music ‘on hold’ is as important as the rest of our business,” Confoy said. “We will put music on hold without putting any music in the rest of the building.”

The music heard on phones is meant to keep people from hanging up when they are left waiting on hold, said Kelly Williams, a spokeswoman for American Telephone & Telegraph.

“Telephones have become so quiet that you wonder if anybody is at home,” Williams said. “It also keeps their mind on something else besides the fact that somebody has them on hold.”

Most telephone music systems are very simple: the phone system is hooked up to a stereo playing taped music or a radio broadcast. Sometimes it’s too simple.

Theme Songs, Marching Bands

Parker & Parker, a Culver City accounting firm, installed a new phone system, but didn’t realize it came complete with its own music. The firm found out after “we got people cackling at us after we put them on hold,” said Michael Parker. “I was horrified the first time I heard it,” said Parker of the music, which sounds somewhat like the music played by some electronic watches.

Instead of music, some companies play their own advertising pitches. Callers on hold at Hasbro Inc. listen to the toy maker’s television commercials. The Los Angeles office of the Teamsters plays the song “Proud to Be a Teamster.” At Dick Clark Productions in Burbank, the telephone music consists of “Bandstand Boogie,” the theme song to Clark’s “American Bandstand” television program. And at USC, callers listen to selections by the USC Marching Band.

But, for the most part, firms rely on a local radio station or a cassette tape purchased at a music store for their phone music. That may get them into trouble.

“Any music on hold would need permission from the copyright owner,” said Kenneth Gilman, director of general licensing at American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers. “If they don’t comply, then they are in violation of U.S. copyright law.”

Gilman says many firms, particularly small ones, are not aware that they are violating the copyright law. Many large corporations have their music provided by such firms as Muzak, which has already paid a fee for the right to use the music, Gilman said.

ASCAP warns firms when it becomes aware of the illegal use of telephone music. One of those firms notified was a Century 21 real estate agent. As a result, the Irvine-based organization circulated a bulletin among its franchises about a month ago alerting them to the copyright law, said company attorney Barry Zaflav.

To abide by the law, Giliman says firms can buy the right to broadcast music copyrighted by ASCAP members, which includes most song writers. ASCAP Fees ranges from $100 to $800 a year.

ASCAP itself does not play any telephone music. “We have so many members that they would wonder why one member’s music is being put on instead of the others,” Gilman said. Besides, “we try to get to people quickly so they are not on hold too long.”