We all want a deal. It's human nature. And when we get one, we feel great! That being said, some things are certainly worth paying for.  

The best-case scenario when making purchases in business is to find a solution that is both affordable and high quality - a rarity in B2B technology. But these products do exist.

When it comes to call recording, you can find some of these affordable gems, but you can also come across a lot of cheap call recording solutions that are indeed cheap in price but also cheap in functionality and stability. These are the cheap recording solutions to be very leery of. Sure, their price may be attractive, but you aren't really getting the audio capture tools you need to meet your order verification, compliance, dispute resolution and customer service needs. Plus, many of these wannabe vendors lock you into their proprietary world by holding your recordings and audio meta data hostage if you ever want to leave.  Some providers even charge you to gain access to your data. 

What's more, many cheap call recording products also provide recorded audio quality that is not up to par with the needs of today's sophisticated voice transcription and speech analytics technologies. These systems require high-fidelity, dual-channel recordings which enable them to accurately transcribe and analyze without failure.  

QUESTIONS TO ROOT OUT CHEAP RECORDING VENDORS

The best way to root out those cheap recording vendors who aren't up to task is to ask yourself a series of questions about your current or prospective recording vendor, such as:

1. Does this vendor have similar customers I can speak with?

2. Does this vendor enable me to export my recordings and data without cost or restriction?

3. Can I easily share my recordings with 3rd party apps like transcription, speech analytics, voice biometrics and business intelligence solutions?

4. Are the solutions modular so I don't have to pay for functionality I don't need?

5. Does this software support cloud, premise and hybrid environments to support all of my locations?

6. Are my recordings dual channel (or merely mono)?

So as the title says, beware of cheap recording solutions. If you're going to go with a low-cost vendor, just make sure it is high on functionality and stability.