@umbra21 - It's not jokes that annoys me so much as someone who leaves a message ten minutes long, particularly when you have to wait out the whole thing before you can leave your voicemail.
With music and messaging that appeals to your target market, you will captivate your audience. Your Message On Hold program can be more than a time filler for callers waiting, it can be an informative, entertaining, and educational tool. With the right content, callers will not only stay on hold, but will have an emotional reaction to your message.

Length – if your callers typically wait 2 minutes at a time, then at least 2 minutes of programming should be the goal. The idea is to ensure the callers don’t hear repeated messages every time they call. A typical on-hold message is 4-8 minutes in length.
Users often don’t invest enough time into their messages, resulting in incomplete, unprofessional, or otherwise under-whelming greetings. Sure, crafting a greeting doesn’t sound all that complicated; however, there are a number of pitfalls users can fall into—i.e. informality, terseness, sincerity, lack of direction, and more. While none of these sound too catastrophic, they are often interrelated. As such, they tend to worsen any problem. For example, humor can cause informality, worsen ambiguity, and weaken sincerity. That being said, users should strive to avoid ALL these pitfalls.