Playlists for hold music, shuffled or in order, with everyone on hold hearing the same stream.
Hold music is now a playlist, and by default everyone on hold listens to the same broadcast.
Playlists
Pick sounds from the library, put them in an order, and choose shuffled or in order. One playlist is marked as the hold music. Shuffled, every pass is a fresh order and no track plays twice in a row.
Like a radio
Before, every caller put on hold started the same track from the beginning. An office with one song and a busy front desk heard the same opening eight bars all day. So did its regular callers.
Now hold music is one shared stream. Put a caller on hold and they join wherever the song has got to, the way you join a radio station. Two callers on hold at once hear the same thing at the same moment.
A radio that pauses
Nothing actually plays when nobody is listening. The stream's position is worked out from a clock when someone joins, and it only moves forward while somebody is on hold. With nobody waiting, it pauses, and the next caller picks up where the last one left off.
So a caller put on hold three times in one call hears the song carry on, not start over.
Prefer the old way?
One switch gives every caller the playlist from the top of a track instead. In order, each new hold starts one track further along than the last.
For ring groups too
A ring group can play this music to a waiting caller in place of a ringing tone, with an announcement first if you want one. "Thanks for calling, someone will be right with you" and then music is a friendlier wait than thirty seconds of ringing.