Call recording software most certainly provides value to call center managers, supervisors and even business users in the form of customer intelligence, agent performance, sales and marketing data, etc. The same holds true for agents themselves. Sure, it is true that many agents don't like the fact their customer interactions are being recorded. This means that their supervisor, team leader or even senior managers can listen to their calls, and who likes that?

Looking at call recording from a different perspective, however, sheds a whole new light on its potential value to agents. For aspiring and self-aware customer service/sales agents, call recording can be one of their best utilized tools in terms of their overall job performance. 

These assertive and performance-conscious agents can directly benefit from call recording in a number of ways, including:

• Performance - A self-starting, diligent agent can go back and review his/her past calls to review select portions of interactions to see what went right and what went wrong. For instance, if the agent has a customer cancel his/her order, perhaps there was something the agent could have said to retain the customer. Going back and listening to the call will help the agent understand what was/was not said so he/she can perform better in the future and perhaps avoid cancellations. 
• Liability - With their calls being recorded, agents have a record to prove what they said and did on a particular call, should their actions ever come into question. Suppose a customer claims one thing was said and the agent knows that isn't correct. He/she can access the call to prove what really happened and avoid accountability.
• Senior Management Visibility - Suppose a sales call center agent closes a big sale or miraculously retains a would-be cancelling customer. The agent is likely to receive praise from his/her supervisor. With the recorded call, he/she may also gain some visibility at the senior management level. Vice Presidents of Sales (as well as VPs of Customer Service and Marketing) have been know to listen to select call recordings to gain a pulse on what customers are saying about buying behaviors, product preferences, competitive offers and so on. They also can listen to these all-star sales calls, thus giving the agent senior level visibility which can go a long way toward his/her advancement in the company. What's more, these calls also have the potential to make their way into the best-practice calls library for training new agents. This provides even further visibility for the agent.

If you are a call center manager or supervisor, make sure your agents (sales or customer service) are leveraging their recorded conversations in these ways. It is sure to boost morale and improve their performance.