There was a time when call recording was the exclusive preserve of large corporates. That’s no longer the case and now businesses of all sizes are reaping the benefit of recording their calls.
It used to be only large corporates that could afford to record calls. Storing and retrieving huge amounts of analog data made it an expensive and cumbersome task.
Not any more. The latest software and cheap cloud storage has made call recording accessible for companies across the board. It is easy to install, and simple to find and playback recorded calls.
There are numerous benefits of this as you can see below. But before we spell these out we need to clear up two common misconceptions.
First of all, call recording in the UK is legal. Secondly, there is no legal requirement to say when you are doing it. It’s true that many companies do let customers know that “calls are being monitored for quality assurance or training purposes” but this is out of politeness not necessity. The information received as part of call recording is just part of the data that companies, and call centres in particular, can use to improve their quality management.
Six key benefits of call recording for SME’s:
- Better Customer Service and Care
Despite the gathering pace of email, messaging and online chats the telephone is still a crucial link between business and customers. Recording calls allows managers to be an “ear on the wall” of all interactions between staff and customers. It enables them to analyse what issues customers have and what needs to be improved. Common complains can be detected at an early stage and steps taken to rectify them. You can also nip customer complaints in the bud before they blow up into bigger issues.
- Improve Scripts, Business Processes and Call Handling
Call recording allows you to assess your client interactions and use them to devise more effective telephone scripts. As you refine your scripts and processes over time, your levels of customer satisfaction or sales will improve no end.
- Staff Training and Development
Role-play scenarios are all well and good but nothing beats real-life examples for use in staff training and one to ones to improve performance. You can use them to show exactly what is expected of employees and contrast good and bad examples to highlight the differences.
- Staff Performance Reviews
Similarly, evidence of actual calls and responses from customers can be part of an employee’s appraisal. You can use recordings to monitor how employees have improved and are performing compared to other staff.
- Legal Liability
Call recordings can provide important evidence in the case of legal proceedings. People can have selective memories when it comes to telephone conversations. Having a back up if there is a dispute can be the difference between no liability and an expensive pay out.
- Improved Helpdesk
Access to previous calls is a big assistance for helpdesks. Queries that may have taken ages to resolve can now be looked into easily for a fast and informed response.
