How Can Call Recording Help You?

It being election season, it’s inevitable that this time of year we will be hearing a lot of buzz words describing states – red state, blue state, purple state, swing state, and somewhat less frequently during mid-term years, bellwether state. But for all of Virginia’s current status as a purple state, did you know that at least legally, Virginia is considered to be a One Party State?

Before the comments section fills with protests, I’ll reveal my meaning. The term one party state refers to call recording. What does it mean? It means as long as one of the two people on the phone is aware of the recording, it is legal to record any telephone conversation. In other words, you can record a conversation without telling the other person on the phone that you are recording.

So what does that mean to your business?

Well picture this: A customer tells you that one someone at your business told them that their total price would be $1000 less than their bill turned out to be. You ask the account representitive who says that it never happened. Who do you believe? Maybe the rep is new or maybe it’s your most trusted employee. Either way, it won’t convince the customer before you. But what if it’s a phone call you have a recording of? Ah, that is different. It’s no longer a he said, she said situation. You have documentation.

I recently had this very situation happen myself. I had a customer deny charges were authorized. That person’s boss naturally was prone to believe his employee. I was very polite and so was the customer but we both had very different recollections of the conversation. Luckily for me, I had a recording. And the customer paid the bill.

There are less dramatic ways that recording software can be of service. We’ve all had the experience of trying to remember a detail of a conversation we can’t quite place. Did he say 12 or 12:30? Did she say my office or hers? When you have recording software it’s easy to check the details.

Some call logging software has a searchable database with an interface similar to an email inbox. The software RCI uses for example is searchable by date, extension, number that called/ number dialed, time, what type of call and even duration. We use it pretty regularly.

Training

Call logging is also a good training tool. An exemplary call can be used to train other employees and a mistake can be caught early and worked on right away.

If you don’t think call recording software could help you, you’re probably just not thinking it through. Remember the customer scenario we described above? It would only take a couple of those sales to cover the cost of upgrading your ESI phone system to include recording software. How much do you make in an average sale? Do you know how much a bad customer service call can cost you?