Organisations can gain many benefits by implementing a call logging and recording system but these will depend on the requirements, the situation, and the type of organisation.
Benefits of Call Recording
- Assessment. It allows management to assess how individuals are performing and where improvements can be made by training them in specific areas. It allows management to focus on skills rather than solely on, for example, sales figures.
- Appraisals. It makes the appraisal process much easier for those being monitored by being able to give real examples of where an employee has done well or perhaps made an error.
- Allows for training to be tailored specifically to key areas where improvements are required.
- Identify poor sales scripts and why they have failed.
- Allows management to hear both sides of the conversation or a dispute.
- Supervision. Allows for a manager or supervisor to immediately review a call and recommend improvements as to how it could have been handled.
- Quality. Allows managers and supervisors to spend more time coaching and mentoring thereby improving quality.
- Conflict resolution. It enables managers to quickly identify problems with customers and then resolve them quickly. It is especially useful with regard to settling complaints and disputes such as accusations of ‘rudeness’ by a company employee or perhaps where an individual denies making a particular statement.
- Customer queries. It helps identify typical queries and frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) and allows for processes to be put in place where everyone is trained to deal with them properly or indeed to put those FAQ’s on the company website.
- Compliance. It ensures that companies regulated by the FSA are compliant. Financial companies must record and retain all telephone conversations relating to customer orders.
- Customer service. Call recording ensures that the customer receives a better experience from the company employees making or taking calls because they are better trained to deal with sales and/or the process of resolving issues and queries. This is one of the reasons why even small companies are implementing call recording systems.
- Traceability. It is easy to track and trace communications between agent and customer, leading to better security and faster dispute resolution.
- Improved effectiveness. Many companies look to improve their sales performance by altering and changing scripts that help their sales people improve their approach. It may well be that one method is more effective than another, with the recordings a manger can easily analyse which method is the most effective and finding out the reasons why that is the case. Even small changes can have a major impact on results.
- Enhances customer experience. If a customer call or query is answered quickly and resolved effectively then it becomes easier to sell more products or services to that person.
- Customer loyalty. The better the quality of experience through the customer support the more likely there will be repeat business.
- Improved revenues. Companies that enhance the customer experience by implementing the above can generally expect improved revenues and sales as well as higher customer satisfaction ratings.
- Effectiveness. It is possible to improve effectiveness of a company or call centre ensuring that agents are able to deal with calls quickly and efficiently thereby enabling them to make more calls and make more sales.
- Capture details from threatening callers and prevent it from occurring again.
- Proof of verbal agreements (sales / legal).
- Prevents misconduct and harassment.
- Sharing information. For example, to show how an individual dealt with a particularly difficult customer or how they managed to generate further business. It can also be used as a conference facility or as an online meeting with colleagues.
Benefits of Call Logging
- Yield Management. Unless a phone system is used, clearly there is no point in having it. By being able to make sure that the phones are being used and by whom, it is easy to find out who is being the most productive. This information can be used to generate reports that outline phone usage and other useful statistics for management and analysis.
- Lower costs. Hotels, for example, often use call logging systems in order to find out when most calls are made, to what regions and how long on average a call might take. This information makes it easier to chose a telecommunications provider, or negotiate a more preferential rate to allow the company to operate more profitably.
- Call analysis. It enables supervisors and management to analyse trends and call patterns and to be able to allocate appropriate resources to specific campaigns or busy periods.
- Provides an audit trail of conversations for compliance and legal purposes rather like email can be used as evidence.
- It is possible to see the duration of calls and who a call may have been transferred to.
- It is possible to find out in detail which department or individuals are making calls and allocate costs accordingly. This means that budgets can be better managed and costs allocated accurately.
- Fraud. It is easier to detect if someone is using or abusing the telephone system whether for personal or indeed illegal purposes.
What can I expect to gain by implementing Call Recording & Logging?
It is difficult to give a typical figure that you should expect as a Return on Investment (RoI) because there are a number of factors that influence this calculation.
In some instances organisations have no choice but to implement a call recording system. That said, those that are governed by the FSA and other regulations will still benefit from the call logging and monitoring system because they will still see the same benefits. Remember that not being compliant can lead to heavy fines and potentially imprisonment of the directors. A call recording system can rapidly return a RoI if it prevents or protects a company from a single law suit.
However, as outlined in benefits, a fast RoI can be achieved quite quickly through:
- Productivity. Increased revenues through more effective sales. It is easy to find out which sales people are making the most phone calls.
- It enables organisations to improve employees’ communication skills regardless of whether they are sales people or customer support.
- Increased customer retention due to improved customer satisfaction.
- Remaining compliant (legal issues) – failure to do so can far outweigh the cost of such a system.
- Cost analysis and reduction. Who or which departments are using the telephones and to whom, for how long. This can lead to questions such as why would a person who does not as part of their job function require to use the phone for long periods?