The quality of customer service has become a determining factor for the success of any company. Today, millennials and Gen Z might not buy due to a single instance of poor customer service, such as long waiting times. To achieve and maintain high customer satisfaction standards, it is essential to have effective tools that provide comprehensive and useful insight into customer interactions.
One way in which many businesses aim to improve their customer service is by recording their phone calls. In this article, we will discuss how call recordings have become a critical necessity for organisations. We’ll discover how it not only helps identify improvement opportunities but also contributes to customer service team training, ensures regulatory compliance, and enhances service quality.
5 benefits of recording calls
1. Discover strengths and areas for improvement
Call recordings offer a unique opportunity to discover your team's strengths and areas that can be improved. By analysing these recordings, you can highlight your staff's effective strategies and share best practices in the organisation. You can also identify approaches that are not benefiting your customers or your business. Success assessment should not be limited to the contact center; every company member is crucial in pursuing excellence in quality management and customer experience.
2. Ensure regulatory compliance
Certain industries, such as the banking and finance sector, have specific regulations about call recording. There may also be specific guidelines about how recording should be initiated – for example, “passive recording” means that the recording is triggered automatically without needing to be activated by an agent. Every organisation must comply with company regulations and security policies.
For some organisations, this involves recording all customer interactions. This helps avoid potential sanctions and serves as a legal protection mechanism. A misunderstanding between an employee and a customer could trigger a lawsuit. Recording customer interactions allows you to resolve disputes in favour of your organisation, as they can serve as objective evidence to clarify what really happened.
3. Speed up onboarding of new agents
Training programs are essential to accelerate the growth of new contact center employees, turning them into pros in no time. Use recordings of common scenarios to help new team members learn from both successes and challenges. Hearing authentic customer interactions will prepare them more effectively than reading a manual. This reduces ambiguities and ensures they are ready to handle real situations in less time.
Read more: The secret to successful digital onboarding of hundreds of employees
4. Feedback, innovation, and product development
These recordings provide insights into how your products or services solve customer problems and drive innovation. By analysing these recordings, you can identify opportunities to improve your offering or even develop new products that address customer needs, keeping your company competitive.
5. Test your strategies
Call recordings in contact centers can provide valuable data on the effectiveness of your marketing and sales strategies. By reviewing recorded interactions, you can identify which sales approaches and marketing arguments are most effective in persuading customers and closing sales. This allows you to adjust and improve your strategies more precisely, increasing conversion rates and revenue.
How to record your calls
The best way to record calls is directly within your telephony system. A multi-platform system allows you to record no matter which device they’re received on i.e. softphone, mobile or fixed telephony calls.
Recording directly in the telephony platform itself means that you get access to the highest quality audio and can set up recordings automatically rather than needing to trigger them manually.
Is it legal to record calls?
The legality of call recording can be a tricky subject and varies across countries and industries. Recording tools are designed to help you meet regulations, but it is your responsibility as a business to know what requirements you need to follow.
Ensure that you store and manage recordings in line with relevant legislation such as GDPR. In some cases, you may need to combine call recording tools with other dedicated compliance tools, such as data storage platforms, if you are subject to certain regulations.
Conclusion
Call recording has become an essential tool for organisations that want to provide exceptional customer service. These recordings not only allow for training, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and regulatory compliance, but also fast-track new agents, drive innovation, and improve marketing and sales strategies. In a world where customer satisfaction is paramount, call recording is an valuable investment to ensure service excellence and business success.
