If you’re using VoIP for your business communications, one of the features that’s probably included in your plan is call recording. To answer our question in simple terms, we can confidently say that yes, you should definitely be utilizing this feature, and we'll give you four reasons why.
Legality comes before anything else, because you don't want to get in trouble for something you could've easily avoided. And if you aren’t aware of the technicalities, you might be wary of setting up call recording. However, it’s pretty straightforward.
Most countries operate under one-party or two-party consent. For the former, as long as one party consents to the call, which can be you, it is legal. One-party consent states include the US (the majority of states), Belgium, Japan, Canada (personal calls only), and the UK (internal use only).
Two-party consent means you need consent from all parties participating in the phone call. This is usually done via automated messages at the beginning of the call (that little message telling you "all calls are recorded and monitored for training purposes"). Examples of two-party consent states include the US (eleven states), Canada (for organizations), Australia, South Africa, and Germany. In the UK, as mentioned above, this applies if you intend on sharing the recording with a third party or publicizing it.
In some countries, the law is unclear, such as in India (where call recordings without consent have been used as evidence in court), and China.
Recording phone calls between employees and customers lets you review how your employees are doing and what needs improving. For example, you might realize you need a standard greeting, that one of your locations is consistently experiencing audio problems, or perhaps your agents aren’t asking the right questions. This way, you know what you need to work on.
They might seem like minor details but can impact your business as you start to expand. Listening back to the calls can help you realize what you need to change.
You can also use call recording for training purposes. If one of your agents is doing well, you can use their recordings as an example for your other employees or new hires.
Sometimes, a situation escalates. Call recording is a great way to ensure that you stay ahead of legal problems and disputes. It’s an inexpensive way to obtain ‘evidence’ that you might need for future reference.
Recordings can show verbal agreements and other detailed information about a customer order that might not have been recorded on paper. You can use them to get rid of the ‘he said she said’ debate.
Not only can you use recordings to review any problems, but your employees can access them if they need to remember a specific order problem or review a client call.
For example, if a customer requested a call-back on a later date, you could go back and skim the recording to see what you discussed last time. Or maybe you’re in the process of signing a new client, in which case you can review your earlier calls to freshen your memory and address the concerns that the client might’ve had, or just show them that you value their business and that you remember what they wanted.
Lastly, your employees may provide better customer service knowing they are being recorded. Not that your employees need monitoring, but it doesn’t hurt to know that the chances of unnecessary disputes are probably lower this way.
Once you have things up and going, you can benefit from the stream of data that call recordings provide. If you don’t have the time to do so yourself, your quality assurance analyst can go through the calls to see if there are common issues that customers are experiencing that you might not be aware of.
Your agents can be aware of these issues too, sure, but you might only spot other issues when reviewing all of your store locations and calls. Some problems might be location-specific, while others might be commonly experienced by all of your customers.
Even with a dedicated employee, listening to all incoming calls is difficult if you are a big or growing business. Instead, various software, like chorus.ai, can transcribe your calls for you as they come in. You can then use text mining tools, like MonkeyLearn, to extract valuable topics and keywords. This information can be used to address customer concerns, restructure your script, and market your product.
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