What if your business could have a window into what your customers actually think – such as how they view the level of service you’re providing, or how satisfied (or dissatisfied) they are with your products? Or, wouldn’t it be valuable to have a window into whether your staff is actually performing their jobs as they should? That window exists, and it’s more accessible than you may realize, thanks to call recording.

For businesses big and small, operating across the world or just down the street, call recording can provide critical information for sales and marketing intelligence, customer service, compliance, and staff development. Organizations spanning all industry sectors – even non-profits and government entities – can realize benefits from using a call recording system to capture, monitor, and track customer interactions.

Call recording can enable any organization to enhance its:

Service quality: Call recording captures customer interactions so that managers can see that their people are providing the highest level of service. Recorded calls also help in dispute resolution.

Regulatory and industry compliance: Call recording can help to ensure that the proper procedures – from a PCI or HIPAA compliance perspective – are being followed. This includes guaranteeing that credit-card information and personal data are being properly handled.

Operational performance: Call recording allows managers to screen employees’ activity to identify areas where workflow was hampered or interrupted. It can also assist with staff training and development.

Call recording isn’t just for multinational companies with complicated IT systems and thousands of customer service reps. Small business owners might be surprised to learn that it can take minimal technical expertise or aptitude to install and use a call recording system. For small business owners, the best solutions are ones that:

-Can be remotely downloaded and installed, in some cases in fewer than 30 minutes.

-Need no special hardware; they can run on existing workstations or servers.

-Require absolutely NO maintenance.

-Can be learned and used in minutes; no technical expertise is required to install, operate, or manage the system.

Of course, financial considerations are a concern for any business, global enterprises and sole proprietorships alike. The truth is, today’s technology has evolved to such an extent that what used to take tens of thousands of dollars can now be purchased for just a few hundred. Those costs include a small upfront or monthly fee, but with the right system, there are no fees for implementation, maintenance, training, or troubleshooting.

Ready to take the next step? Then here are some questions to ask when choosing a call recording vendor and solution:

1. Is the solution designed primarily for a company my size?
2. Does the solution support multi-site and multi-tenant capabilities, if and when I need them?
3. What does the implementation process look like and what does it cost?
4. Is there phone support available in case I have any questions?
5. How open and interoperable is the solution, given my current IT environment?
6. Does the call recording vendor have experience with businesses in my industry?
7. Is the solution designed to address my specific industry and regulatory requirements?

Due to the various VoIP apps available for both desktop and mobile (including call recording software), video conferencing has become part of everyday life – for many of us it's how we keep in touch with family members and friends. Video conferencing is also commonly used to discuss business (or startup) ideas with friends. From there, it's just a small step to using such solutions to keep in touch with business partners, investors, and possibly customers.

The latest technologies now allow you to take the conference room with you on the go, eliminating the need for face-to-face meetings, reducing traveling costs, and saving precious time. Users are able to join scheduled meetings or last-minute, on-the-fly meetings with a tap of a finger or a click of the mouse on their mobile device or personal computer.

If you've been considering using any of the available VoIP apps such as Viber, Tango, FaceTime, Skype, or Google Hangouts (just to name a few), you may want to reconsider, because these tools lack the most important features a business needs for conducting a video conference. Some also lack the ability to connect more than two people and are limited to a single platform, such as FaceTime, which only works within the Apple ecosystem.

A professional video conferencing tool works on all platforms – both desktop and mobile – and it incorporates the ability to moderate a meeting, such as inviting participants, granting requests to speak, putting participants on mute, blocking participants' video, disconnecting unwanted attendees, recording meetings, and much more.

One such solution is Scopia, a video conferencing application for desktop and mobile from Radvision, an Avaya company. The application is compatible with every major platform in the form of a simple browser plugin on the desktop. By installing Scopia on mobile or desktop, you will be able to create the perfect meeting environment for remote workers, clients, and vendors.

The app delivers HD video conferencing from mobile devices and also incorporates an advanced audio system providing echo cancellation and background noise suppression.

Digitcom (an OrecX call recording reseller) is proud to be an Avaya partner in providing the ultimate virtual video conference room for businesses. For more detailed information about how Digitcom can help you can grow your business, improve your customer service, and increase productivity, visit digitcom.ca.

OrecX is also an Avaya partner, with proven integrated call recording integrations.

Organizations of all sizes today employ call recording software to help optimize sales, service and compliance; and when chosen and managed correctly, these solutions can be invaluable in this regard.  However, call recording software is not always selected or utilized properly, and when this happens, its effectiveness can be significantly stifled.

Below is a list of the top 5 mistakes companies make when purchasing, deploying or managing a call recording software system:

1. Neglecting to try the software out first before purchasing it.  You wouldn't buy a car without first test driving it. The same holds true for call recording software.  You must install it in your environment and give it a test run before committing to a full purchase.  Not all call recording software providers offer such a trial, but some do. Demand that you get to trial the software upfront.

2. Ensuring it has the necessary compliance capabilities.  Most firms today fall under some sort of regulations - PCI-DSS, HIPAA, Telemarketing Sales Rule, etc. You want to be sure your new software supports these requirements with call masking/muting, e.g. to eliminate sensitive information from the call recording, or other capabilities.  

3. Not creating and saving specific search queries.  You should be able to develop highly specific search queries for pulling up all calls that meet certain criteria - such as all calls over five minutes that mention the word "cancel", or all calls involving support for a new product, etc. These search parameters need to be able to be saved and running in the background so these interactions are automatically cued for you for quick and easy discovery. Speech analytics software may need to be installed in concert with call recording software to bring these capabilities to life.

4. Not leveraging call recordings for the benefit of the full organization - There is no better way to tie your complete staff directly to the voice of the customer than by letting them hear the actual voice of the customer.  If you have a loud speaker in the office, notify all staff to listen for three minutes - once a week or so - while you play a good service call for them.  If you don't have a broadcasting capability, simply email a select recording to all staff and require them to listen to it, again, once a week or so. Almost no organizations today do this, but it's a fantastic way to tie the customer and all of your employees together.

5. Not ensuring the software has an open API or tested and easy integration to your PBX, CRM system, and so on. The last thing you want is a new solution that is very difficult to integrate with your current environment.  Be sure to ask for testing certifications from switch vendors, proof of a true open API, etc.  This is a very big pitfall that many organizations fall into.  Call recording vendors love to tell you that they can integrate seamlessly with any PBX but when push comes to shove it's a clunky, complicated, arduous and time consuming process.  You want to avoid all of this hassle at all costs.  It slows down your implementation, rings up your cost and creates a whole lot of unnecessary headache. 

Every business deserves to have call recording software but not all can afford it. Call recording software helps companies across all industries improve customer service, minimize risk, verify orders and maintain compliance.    Many systems cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy, tens of thousands to implement and tens of thousands to maintain.  Not all systems do, however. Some call recording software is much more affordable, can be installed in just minutes and requires little if any maintenance.  These are the systems that every organization has a right to own. 

In fact, there should be a Call Recording Bill of Rights to ensure every business has access to call recording software, as it has essentially become a business critical application today.

Bill of Rights:

1. Call recording software shall be affordable enough that any business in need can easily acquire, install and maintain it.
2. Call recording software shall be flexible enough to interoperate with any technology environment.
3. Call recording software shall be installed remotely or onsite.
4. Call recording software shall require little, if any, maintenance and support.
5. Call recording software shall feature at the least voice/screen recording, quality monitoring and mobile call recording.
6. Call recording software shall be open source or open architecture to ensure full interoperability with existing systems.
7. Call recording software shall cost nothing or almost nothing to customize and tailor to one’s environment.
8. Call recording software shall be offered as a free trial prior to purchase.
9. Call recording software shall be interoperable with leading PBX systems – both TDM and VoIP – such as Avaya, Cisco and others.
10. Call recording software shall be both PCI-DSS and HIPAA compliant.
11. Call recording software shall be installed in hours, not days, weeks or months.
12. Call Recordings shall be portable and available in industry-standard file format.
13. Call recording software should be easy enough to learn in just a few hours.
14. All call recording software advanced features shall be available in all product levels - no feature stripping for basic offerings.

While call recording is obviously not a right, we at OrecX we believe it should be. 

Video posted by Sangoma.

There are multiple factors to consider when moving away from your existing phone system to a new IP telephony system. One of the most important decisions to make is choosing the right PBX system, and taking into consideration the company’s IT and business practices.

The implementation and future growth of the business or organization depends on an important decision you need to make at the start: you need to choose between hosted PBX and a premise-based system. The latter means you will have the company’s PBX system physically located at arm’s length, which also means full control, while the former means your PBX is hosted by an external service provider.

While there are a couple of factors that come into play, we will focus on costs and unique features that will help you choose the right PBX system. 

In the long run, cost is one of the most important factors to consider. While it’s obvious that the initial setup costs of a hosted solution will not be as high as an on-site solution, there are factors that will influence the bill in the future, such as maintenance costs.

A hosted PBX offers lower setup costs and no maintenance costs, as these costs are shouldered by the service provider. Premise-based PBX systems have higher setup costs, but potentially lower ongoing costs (the maintenance costs); however, it’s risky, because you never know how technological change will affect your existing equipment.

Besides saving you money and offering scalability, hosted PBX services come with different features and packages, such as voice recording, click-to-call widgets, voicemail to email, and performance tracking, just to name a few.

Call recording increases company productivity and helps the company to better evaluate sales people's performance. The recorded conversation can be easily downloaded with the help of an active Internet connection.

With a click-to-call widget, companies can take advantage of another way to get in touch with their customers, as a call can be initiated simply by clicking a widget that appears on the screen.

With growth being the keyword for every business, performance is an essential factor that needs to be measured, and a hosted PBX allows exactly that via reports that track calls, their length, and other important details.

After taking into consideration all the advantages of hosted PBX systems, one difficult question still remains: since more and more companies are providing such services, which one should you choose?

In order to make the best decision, here some of the most important things to consider: integration, reliability, support, and finally, the features included in the service package.

What separates Digitcom from others is the company’s 20 years of experience in the business. Digitcom has grown to become the leading provider of hosted PBX, and has won numerous awards over the years, including the prestigious CDN Top 100 Solution Providers of 2011, 2012 and 2013 three years in a row.

For more information on hosted PBX systems and to learn more about Digitcom, please visit www.digitcom.ca.

Enterprise SBCs make it easier to embrace launching a new next-generation contact center

The contact center landscape has grown increasingly sophisticated during the past several years, largely due to the rapid proliferation of mobile and IP communications.

Now that customer service departments are using VoIP solutions and mobile-enabled technologies, agents are able to manage more workloads and interactions without introducing performance complications or risking the inability to collaborate with prospective or existing clients using their desired platforms.

While these benefits are appealing, the diversity of communications in the contact center has introduced some significant challenges. This drives the need for enterprise session border controllers (SBCs) within these contact centers, as the technology can alleviate numerous concerns and potential costs.

Enterprise SBCs sit at the network edge and provide security as well as an effective way to translate different SIP formats so that many types of devices function on the corporate network with ease.

Sophisticated enterprise SBCs are designed with the scalability in mind to support in-house and remote agents, making them a perfect fit for contact centers that are looking to engage in teleworking strategies.

Mitigate security issues
Now that end-users in and outside of the contact center are using a multitude of devices and communication solutions, businesses must be able to monitor and protect those connections if they are to completely mitigate risk. Enterprise SBCs have the unique ability to view each interaction and application as a single session, which can make it easier for security and IT professionals to keep operations flowing smoothly and safely.

The adoption of unified communications systems, where VoIP, instant messaging and other collaborative tools converge, makes a strong case for using enterprise SBCs. This is because SBCs can give managers the unique ability to observe and track touch points without interfering.

Consolidate remote workers
Mobility has empowered the workforce and driven employee operations out of the office and into homes. This remote working phenomenon has made the contact center life both easier and more difficult. While companies have fewer in-house agents, decision-makers need to ensure that teleworkers stay efficient and are able to connect to the network.

As contact centers evolve and become more diverse in nature, decision-makers need to consider if their current telecommunications infrastructures will be able to make the cut. Enterprise SBCs can be highly advantageous for organizations that want to embrace bringing your own device (BYOD) and support remote working without worrying that doing so will introduce unmanageable security or connectivity issues. Ultimately, this makes the SBC an ideal partner for a next-generation contact center.

Check out this white paper on Session Border Controllers, the Critical Component for more information.

Call recording software can bring substantial value to any organization in the form of improved customer service, regulatory/industry compliance, order verification and dispute resolution capabilities.  In this piece we are going to focus only on the customer service and dispute resolution value of call recording.

When you capture customer calls (and agent screen activity), you have a goldmine of data to help you dramatically enhance your entire customer service operation. The reason is that these interactions are precisely where your company delivers its service.  These customer conversations with your agents are at the very center of your organization's ability to deliver a stellar customer experience. So not only do you want to record these interactions, but you also want to listen to what the recordings are telling you.

Here are the top 3 things you can learn from your recorded calls:

1. Which customers might defect and why - why not have each agent ask callers at the end of the conversation to rate the service given on a scale of 1-5.  With this information, your supervisors can review the calls of anyone who gave a score of 1-2 (possibly 3) and call them back if necessary to keep them from defecting.  You can also use these recordings to ascertain where the problem lies - was it due to poor agent performance, a correctable workflow issue, etc.

2. Which workflow processes need fixing - A dissatisfied customer might be the result of faulty workflow processes.  When supervisors listen to a sampling of calls (and view the screen recording) from each agent, they may discover workflow issues.  For instance, you might find that certain data (like purchase history) isn't populating properly on the agent's screen.  Perhaps there is an on-screen glitch in order processing and certain orders won't take and need to be resubmitted.  With the recordings, you will be able to identify such root causes of customer service disruption so you can work to correct them right away.

3. Who is at fault in a customer dispute (agent or customer?) - Customers often times say one thing and recall saying something else.  When this happens, disputes can occur.  With the specific recorded call at your disposal, you and the agent can listen to the interaction and determine precisely what was said.  If a customer did in fact provide authorization to charge his/her credit card, for example, you will hear it.  If he/she did not offer such approval, you will learn that too.

We've taken a look back at our 25+ blog posts from 2013 and learned that the following five were most heavily viewed and commented on:

15 Critical Call Center Management Statistics

Important call center management statistics to help you understand just how important it is to focus as much on your call center's customer experience as it is to focus on the product/service you deliver/support.

2013 Customer Service Stats to Help you in 2014!

11 important statistics from last year to help you focus your efforts for this year to increase your overall customer satisfaction.

5 Tips for Coaching Staff with Call Recording Software

Several unique ways you can use phone recording software to improve customer service skills within your contact center.

Critical KPIs for your Call Center and Enterprise

Includes a matrix of over 25 important key performance indicators for your call center.

With 40+ Recording Vendors Who’s the Best and Why?

A detailed description of several key variables to consider when choosing a call recording system among the 40+ vendors today. 

You can Click Here to see all of our blog articles.