We turned the frustrating act of being on hold into a means of raising money for charity. Throughout the Christmas period, regular hold music was replaced with music that generated royalties each second customers spent on hold, which were then donated directly to The Salvation Army. Instead of just being told ‘your call is important’, we actually made it important as customers generated a donation by simply waiting on the line.

We created ‘Wonderful Hold Music’, which turned the frustrating act of being put on hold into a means of raising money for charity. We replaced the canned hold music with the Myer Spirit of Christmas album. Every second spent listening generated a royalty that Myer donated directly to The Salvation Army’s family and domestic violence work.

Customers on hold were informed that their call was important not only to Myer, but to the families affected by domestic violence that they were raising money for just by waiting on the line.

Every minute spent on hold generated a five-cent donation (25 times more than Spotify’s royalty rate). Over the Christmas shopping period (December 1 to 25) $32,691 was raised by patient shoppers, turning the dull act of being on hold into a wait worth something.

As a result, by turning frustration into philanthropy, Myer’s call abandon rate dropped from 40% to 5% over Christmas 2015, creating positive outcomes and a merry Christmas for the customer, the charity and Myer.