Workforce Management Featured Article
Outdated Call Recording Solutions Create More Problems than Benefits
If you run a call center operation of nearly any size, from just a few agents to hundreds or even thousands, you probably use call recording software. You may use it to train and evaluate agents, or you may be required by law to record calls (this is particularly true for companies operating in financial services or health care). For whatever reason you record, it’s possible that your recording solution is ageing. While many contact centers are feeling budget pinches as of late and limping through with old technology, when it comes to call recording, this may not be a smart strategy.
According to a recent blog post by Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of workforce optimization solutions provider Monet Software, meeting today’s quality standards and customer expectations is becoming more difficult, and since call recording software plays a key role in how a contact center meets its customer service goals and how well agents perform their duties, it shouldn’t be neglected.
Some issues that may be cropping up in the contact center due to older generations of call recording include the following, according to Ciarlo:
Inaccessible call recordings. In order to get the most out of call recording solutions, the calls must be easily retrievable, which isn’t the case with many older systems. If a manager needs to locate a specific call or series of tagged calls, and the effort proves frustrating and time-consuming, the system is useless. Today’s newer call recording solutions are stored in a way that makes them easy to search and retrieve.
It’s difficult to use. If your call recording solution is hard to use, chances are, you’re not using it often enough to make a difference. An easy-to-use solution encourages more frequent use of call recordings, and the accompanying benefits this brings.
Quality assurance scoring is difficult. Since it’s likely that you use the call recordings, in part, to evaluate agents, it should be easy to do. Solutions that come with built-in quality assurance and performance scoring can make agent evaluations a breeze, which means companies can do it more often. Evaluating more often is a direct path to achieving true employee engagement in the contact center.
Maintenance issues. Maintaining an older model of a premise-based call recording solution is likely becoming a headache for your IT department. A cloud-based solution can leave the maintenance up to the solution vendor, and also means that recordings can be stored in someone else’s off-site data center.
Poor integration. For other contact centers, a lack of integration is the biggest problem, according to Ciarlo.
“How well does the call recording solution work with your existing other call center tools?” he asks. “By integrating call recording with other tools such as workforce management (WFM) and quality management, call centers gain a unified functionality that results in greater efficiency and improved customer service.”
Effective call recording is one of the most important tools in improving quality, service levels and employee engagement. Struggling with an outdated or ineffective solution is not a wise choice for a twenty-first century contact center.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi