RingCentral Music on hold

Name: RingCentral Music on hold
Brand: RingCentral

Leader

The all-in-one AI communications platform ✨

Est 1999|Valuation $6.3B|Raised $2.8B

LinkedIn 318K|Website|Web traffic 10.8M|FTEs 6,718|HQ Belmont, California, US

MarketsVoice & Video Calling (VoIP, UCaaS)

Published May 16, 2026

01Common complaints

- If the requirement is solely for professional, standalone MoH content and licensing strategy (rather than a phone system), a specialized MoH/content provider (audio production, licensing, and strategy) may be a more appropriate match. RingCentral partners (for example, Snap Recordings) address content needs but not as a standalone phone-only service. - If advanced playlist rotation/randomization is required, community reports indicate repetitive restart behavior that should be validated against requirements. - If the organization is highly sensitive to support or contract/cancellation friction, community reports suggest testing support responsiveness for the specific account type before committing. - If budget constraints prioritize minimal feature sets at the lowest possible cost, some lower-cost UCaaS alternatives may provide an adequate MoH capability with reduced expense.

Deal disqualifiers (poor fit)

Requirements for advanced MoH playlist logic (true randomization/rotation) where restart-from-beginning behavior is unacceptable.
Very small teams or organizations that require rapid, high-touch support and have limited internal administration capacity.

Reported limitations / issues

- **Restart-from-beginning behavior:** Community users describe MoH messages restarting at the beginning each time a caller is placed on hold; randomization/rotation is a requested capability. - **Confusing interaction of settings:** Multiple audio settings (queue audio, connecting audio, per-extension hold music) can interact in ways that produce unexpected caller experiences. - **Edge-case hold behavior:** Community threads describe scenarios where RingCentral hold music was audible when a mobile caller placed a call on hold, which is unexpected in some configurations.

File format and audio constraints

RingCentral documentation indicates support for WAV and MP3 uploads for hold music.
Recommended telephony-friendly formats (for example, 8 kHz mono PCM / G.711) are noted in regional documentation.

Roadmap / future features

Public idea forums contain requests for features such as allowing callers to change or disable hold music and for more advanced audio streaming/IVR choices. These indicate user demand but do not constitute product commitments.

02Why they buy

Documented capabilities cited in product materials

Targeted messaging based on time/day and caller attributes is documented as a configurable capability in RingCentral’s MoH/queue audio features.
Integration with RingCentral call queue greeting types (Introductory / HoldMusic / ConnectingAudio / InterruptPrompt, etc.) allows structured management of queue caller experience.

Where competitors may have an advantage

Simpler administration or more explicit pricing transparency in entry tiers can be provided by some competitors.
Some providers differentiate on international calling bundles or straightforward entry pricing (plan-dependent).

03Field reports

Scope note: Review platforms often evaluate RingCentral RingEX/MVP overall rather than Music on Hold as an isolated feature. The excerpts below focus on MoH-relevant themes from accessible sources.

Positive or neutral user sentiment (examples)

- A RingCentral subreddit commenter noted long-term use across multiple clients with intermittent support needs; this reflects overall product sentiment rather than MoH-specific endorsement. - Some users report stable operation at scale (example comment describing deployment across many locations and thousands of users with complex routing functioning as intended); this is a platform-level observation rather than an MoH-specific measurement. - Anecdotal posts indicate some end users respond positively to specific hold music selections.

Negative reviews / complaints that touch MoH or related audio routing

- **Calls going into hold music unexpectedly:** community reports describe inbound calls being routed in a way that caused music to play while the caller expected ringing. - **Hold music behavior bugs/quirks:** examples include hold music playing when the caller's side is placed on hold or hold music playing unexpectedly mid-call. - **Message/track restarting from beginning:** community threads describe MoH messages or tracks restarting from the beginning each time a caller is placed on hold, creating repetition for repeat callers.

Support and service experience feedback (recurring theme)

Community threads (RingCentral subreddit and support forums) commonly reference:

Support described as inconsistent for complex issues; basic issues are resolved more readily than complex ones.
Long wait times and escalation difficulty for some account types and tiers.

Cancellation experience (recurring negative theme; not MoH-specific)

Multiple community posts describe difficult cancellation experiences and long hold times when attempting to cancel service. These threads reflect platform-level customer experience rather than MoH-only issues.

Why customers choose it (inferred from discussions)

Reported selection drivers include:

Consolidation of voice, messaging, and video with a single vendor.
Broad integration options and administrative capabilities.
Ability to support complex routing needs (call queues, multi-site configurations).

Why some customers leave

Common churn reasons observed in community discussions:

Support experience (response time, repeated transfers, ticket churn).
Billing and contract rigidity.
Regulatory friction around SMS/TCR processes (adjacent area frequently cited).

What’s available publicly

This research did not identify Music on Hold–specific "before/after" quantitative case studies (for example, reduced abandonment rate) with clear methodology.

Vendor claims worth questioning

RingCentral marketing excerpts assert Music on Hold can help retain more callers. The survey methodology or supporting data for such statements was not clearly documented in the materials reviewed here; these statements should be treated as directional rather than definitive without access to the underlying study.

Practical, evidence-based expectation

Avoiding silence on hold is likely to reduce caller hangups in many contexts, but measurable outcomes depend on:

queue times,
call routing design,
message cadence,
audio quality (telephony bandwidth and codec constraints), and
appropriate enablement of "music while connecting" versus per-extension hold music.

04Best fit

Company sizes

Typical fit: small businesses through large enterprises. The platform targets organizations across SMB to enterprise segments.
MoH value increases for organizations with multiple departments/queues, compliance-driven messaging needs, multi-site operations, and high inbound volumes where queue experience matters.

Industries

Common fits include professional services, healthcare clinics (with appropriate attention to call-recording and privacy notices), and retail/service businesses with significant inbound call volumes.

Roles / personas

Decision makers: IT managers, telecom/UC administrators, operations leaders.
Operational users: receptionists, customer service teams, front-office staff.

Qualification criteria (typical indicators of fit)

Existing RingEX deployments where operators prefer a platform-native MoH solution.
Requirements for different audio per queue/auto-receptionist/extension.
Availability of an internal phone system owner to manage settings and testing.

05The pitch

What the product does (core value proposition)

RingCentral "Music + Messages on Hold" is a RingEX (formerly RingCentral MVP) capability that lets businesses play: - **Music on hold** when a call is placed on hold. - **"Waiting in queue" audio** while the platform is attempting to connect the caller (e.g., call queues). - **Intermittent messages** (interrupt prompts) to provide reassurance, information, FAQs, promotional content, or routing instructions. RingCentral describes this feature as addressing caller experience and retention by supporting targeted playback based on time/day and caller attributes.

Target market and positioning

Primarily SMB to mid-market and enterprise organizations using RingEX as their UCaaS phone system.
The feature is presented as a standard component of a cloud PBX/UCaaS offering rather than a standalone music-on-hold (MoH) vendor.

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