You Belong With Me… On Hold: Scientists Find Taylor Swift the Key to Call-Waiting Bliss
Taylor Swift's songs make the perfect hold music when you're on the phone, according to a university study into the tunes we love and hate while hanging on to speak to someone.
Led by expert music psychologist Dr Mimi O'Neill, researchers at the University of York put 2,540 participants on hold - playing them hours of songs and sounds to test their response.
The ground-breaking study was commissioned by mobile network provider Talkmobile as part of its commitment to enhance its already industry-leading customer service rating.
Dr O'Neill says, 'Both country and rock scored well in our research, so a modern-day fusion based with its roots in those genres would seem to be the perfect hold music. This indicates that an artist like Taylor Swift would fit best with these findings.
'This isn't just about customer satisfaction, it's about how sound and music can influence human behaviour and emotional well-being in everyday situations.'
Recreating a real-life call experience, listeners were left waiting on the line for two minutes and 22 seconds while one of 10 audio tracks was piped into their ears, with researchers monitoring their heart rate, mood and alertness.
The average Brit spends 38.2 minutes on hold waiting to speak to an advisor in customer service before eventually giving up, according to a Talkmobile study from earlier this year.
Having analysed the findings, it has been shown that Taylor Swift's songs may be in the 'sweet spot' when combining different genres of music, from country and pop to rock, meaning Swift's combination of all three may be the answer to creating the ultimate hold music.
Taylor Swift 's songs make the perfect hold music when you're on the phone, according to a university study
The American songwriter's hits like 'The Story of Us', or 'Better Than Revenge' from her country-pop album Speak Now from 2010, or her re-recording released in 2023, perfectly combine the original Taylor Swift sound with fast-paced rock guitar.
Swift's career started with mostly country-style music; however, as her popularity grew and her style evolved, she started to play with different genres in song, mostly comprising pop and rock, which has secured her status as a music icon all around the world, appealing to a wide variety of genres in the process.
Country music scored as the third most popular type of audio, with the overall enjoyment from the participants; rock and pop also scored high on the list, with 5.59 for pop and 5.45 as the mean score, respectively.
In contrast, heavy metal was the least liked genre, with the likes of Black Sabbath and Metallica, ranked the lowest with 5.10 out of 10, with some participants even admitting the loud and aggressive music left them, in some cases, with headaches and distress.
And, one in ten people (11.4%) dropped out before the experiment concluded.
Participants were also asked to estimate how long they believed they were being put on hold for while listening to each type of music.
The results revealed silence ranked the best, with most listeners believing they were on hold for an average of one minute and 49 seconds, followed by trivia at 3.04 minutes.
However, rock scored just a second longer than trivia with 3.05 minutes, followed shortly by country with 3.07 minutes.
Despite being the perfect hold music, it is unlikely that companies will be able to get Taylor Swift's permission for use on their systems
Talkmobile spokesperson Stuart Wilson said: 'As the 14-time Grammy award-winning artist enters her new era, releasing in October, it looks like we're entering a brand new 'era' of hold music too.
'Although it may disappoint some 'Swifties' out there, unfortunately, we won't be able to able to get permission to use her songs as hold music.
'However, this research does give us valuable knowledge about what people like and what they hate when being kept on hold.
'Our 4.7 Trustpilot rating, as well as 96% of our average wait times being less than 20 seconds, reflects our commitment to industry-leading customer service.
'This research reinforces our dedication to improving every aspect of the customer journey - even the parts that might seem small, like hold music.'
