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Understanding How Overhead Music Can Enhance Your Business There is one thing in this world that people hate more than anything, and that is waiting. Unfortunately, if you run a business, regardless of the type, it is likely that your customers will have to wait every once in a while. They may have to wait at the tills, wait for a customer service agent to provide them with information or even wait for their wives to finish trying on a bunch of clothes. Your job, as a business, is to make sure that your customers continue to have a good experience, even while waiting. This can be achieved by using overhead music. overhead music generally plays through the speaker system at a volume that is not intrusive. After all, you don't want your business to accidentally be transformed into a nightclub. Finding the right volume to play your overhead music on can be hard. Too soft and people will find themselves automatically straining to hear. Too loud and people will not enjoy it anymore at all. It is recommended to try the system with different settings. Also find out whether there is a difference in how loud the music appears depending on how many people are in your business. Acoustics are complicated and any subtle change in the environment can cause significant changes in the way the music sounds. Next, you need to think about what sort of music you want to play. For a long time, overhead music was almost always classical. Although classical music does have a certain air of sophistication about it, it isn't necessarily the right kind of music. It will certainly not attract the younger audiences and many people find that classical music is quite depressing. Instead, it was long popular for music for business to be more of the New Age style. Again, this has its pros and cons. Firstly, it is very relaxing but sometimes to the extent that people forgot what they initially attended your business for. Secondly, there are certain people that truly detest New Age music. Naturally, it is impossible to please everybody and finding the right music is often more about catering to your overall audience. A fashionable clothing store, for instance, will usually play music much louder than in the management suite of a bank. They will also be more inclined to play more popular music, such as the Top 40, R&B or even Rap if that suits the

Understanding how overhead music can enhance your business

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Understanding How Overhead Music Can Enhance Your Business

There is one thing in this world that people hate more than anything, and that is waiting. Unfortunately, if you run a business, regardless of the type, it is likely that your customers will have to wait every once in a while. They may have to wait at the tills, wait for a customer service agent to provide them with information or even wait for their wives to finish trying on a bunch of clothes. Your job, as a business, is to make sure that your customers continue to have a good experience, even while waiting. This can be achieved by using overhead music. overhead music generally plays through the speaker system at a volume that is not intrusive. After all, you don't want your business to accidentally be transformed into a nightclub. Finding the right volume to play your overhead music on can be hard. Too soft and people will find themselves automatically straining to hear. Too loud and people will not enjoy it anymore at all. It is recommended to try the system with different settings. Also find out whether there is a difference in how loud the music appears depending on how many people are in your business. Acoustics are complicated and any subtle change in the environment can cause significant changes in the way the music sounds.

Next, you need to think about what sort of music you want to play. For a long time, overhead music was almost always classical. Although classical music does have a certain air of sophistication about it, it isn't necessarily the right kind of music. It will certainly not attract the younger audiences and many people find that classical music is quite depressing. Instead, it was long popular for music for business to be more of the New Age style. Again, this has its pros and cons. Firstly, it is very relaxing but sometimes to the extent that people forgot what they initially attended your business for. Secondly, there are certain people that truly detest New Age music. Naturally, it is impossible to please everybody and finding the right music is often more about catering to your overall audience. A fashionable clothing store, for instance, will usually play music much louder than in the management suite of a bank. They will also be more inclined to play more popular music, such as the Top 40, R&B or even Rap if that suits the overall theme. It is all about finding a way to express the style and type of the business through the universal language of music.

Besides deciding on the type of music you want to play, you also have to think about the system you want to use. Music is a tricky business and if you don't have a fantastic system and great speakers, it will work against you. Overhead music should be mellowing or energizing, but it should never be scratchy

Page 2: Understanding how overhead music can enhance your business

and you should never get into a situation where the disc jams or starts jumping for instance. Take a look on www.dmx.com to see what sort of services and systems are available and how they can enhance the experience your customers have while visiting your store. The thing with music is that it works on an almost subliminal level. You would be surprised at the amount of people that will return to your store or business simply because the music made them feel good. They may not even realize that this is what makes them come back again and again. A clear demonstration of the power of this is found in those stores that now have central sitting areas with headphones, where people can listen to a range of different albums while their companions use the store. It is such a simple tool, above and beyond playing music through the overhead system, but it works incredibly well. It is something that people will talk about to their friends and members of their family when they leave your store and this is an invaluable piece of advertising and marketing. They do say that there is no better type of advertising than word of mouth and any positive advertising is something you should grab onto with both hands.