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Advantages of recording on the extension side:
If you record on the extension side of the PBX you will
be able to record calls made between extensions. If
you record on the line side you will not be able to
record calls made between extensions.
Advantages of recording on the outside line side:
Most businesses have more extensions than
outside lines, so to record every call made into or
out of the company would need less lines recorded if
the outside lines are recorded rather than every extension.
What to record on to
This can depend upon how long you want to keep the
recordings for:
- DVD is good for the highest capacity recording
per disk of around 900 hours, but is only available
on centralised recording solutions in the comms.
room
- DAT tape is still available, but is becoming
less popular with the growth of DVD. It can have
a higher capacity per tape than DVD, but access
time and maintenance are both greater. Again, it
is only available on centralised recording solutions
in the comms. room
- CD has a high capacity of around 175 hours per
disk. At the moment it is only available on the
Retell 175 analogue phone.
- MiniDisc offers very high audio quality and
it is easy to move around a call centre. Fairly
easy to name tracks to find them for training sessions,
and tracks can be edited to make it easy to get
to the key part of a call for a training session
- You can record onto a telephone recorder and
then transfer those recordings over your LAN to
your own hard drives and back up systems.
- Recording directly onto your own PC is inexpensive
and makes it easy to label recordings and to sort
them to make it easy to find them later by customer
name etc. You would back up the recordings as part
of your normal back up procedure
- Cassettes are still very popular as they are
familiar, inexpensive, good for training as they
can be listened to on other machines such as in
the car, and good for recording issues, such as
problems with one particular supplier.
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See
this Call Recording menu for a selection of
professional call recording equipment |
Why record
If you only have one problem person, and you know
which phone you are going to make the calls to them
on, or that they will phone you on, then a low capacity
system such as a cassette is fine; you would just switch
on the recorder when you make or receive a call with
that person.
Again, for the odd bit of training, then a cassette
or MiniDisc is fine.
However, if the calls that you need to listen to could
take place on any phone at any time, then you need to
be able to record all calls to make sure that you record
the ones that you will need in the future, whichever
ones they are.
How to find a recording
Where you connect can affect how you can search for
a recording.
- If you record on the outside line side with
suitable equipment, then typically each recording
will be labelled, and therefore can be searched
for by, date, time, called no. and dialled no. in
(if Called ID is turned on by BT, and if the caller
has not surprised it). You may be able to compare
the call information with your company's database
so that you can interpret a call as being to a particular
person. Note that BT in the UK calls Caller ID on
analogue lines Caller Display.
- If you record on an analogue extension you can
certainly record by date and time, but called no.
and dialled no. in would depend upon the phone system
- If you record from the cable between the phone
and the headset you cannot pick up caller ID or
dialled no., but by recording on the PC you can
search by date and time. Because the PC is in front
of you, you can also type in notes on the calls
through which you can search later. The most sophisticated
way though is possible if you have to do something
on your computer screen to talk to your customer,
such as to bring up their record, or if the computer
screen pops their information anyway. Then it is
easy to integrate that information with the call,
so that you can search for recordings by customer
name, what they ordered, the sales person, or any
other information that is in your own existing computer
system.
Issues with 'agent observe recording'
Your phone system may call it agent observe, silent
monitoring or barge in. Whatever it is called, it is
a function of the phone system that enables a supervisor
to punch in a code to their phone along with an agent's
extension, and so to listen to that agent's calls without
the agent or the customer being aware during the call
that it is being observed.
Retell Call Recorders and Vidicode Call Recorders
can provide single line recording equipment that can
record from the supervisor's headset. However the issue
that normally occurs is that the phone system is not
designed with recording in mind, so that the supervisor's
headset's microphone is still live, even though neither
the agent nor the customer can hear them. This means
that simple ways of connecting to the telephone will
record the agent, the customer AND noises or conversations
that the supervisor has around her desk. These extra
noises make it hard to hear the conversation and not
good enough sound for use in training sessions.
Please contact us to discuss your telephone call
recording equipment possibilities, so that you make
the right decision for yourself.
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