Call Recording Solutions for Call Centers

If you have a small or mid-sized call center it is much more difficult to get budget appropriated for technology such as Call Recording, Quality Monitoring and Workforce Management. We have talked to numerous centers with as few as 3 agents, all the way up to 800 agents, looking for a cost-effective Call Recording system or Workforce Management. The small to mid-size centers though typically have a much tougher time finding something that meets their requirements. Why?

But, even though these differences exist, are the needs of the small/mid-size center that different? No, not really. They are held to the same service levels, quality standards, sales quota, customer satisfaction levels, etc. And, they are expected to maintain these levels with limited technology.

When it comes to Call Recording, there is technology available that will fit this specific call center niche. If you don’t know what’s available, it’s hard to locate what you need without weeding through a lot of over-priced and over-featured stuff. We’ve been able to put together a stable of products to fit virtually any recording or workforce management application.

Call Recording Center Can Help!

Call Recording Center can provide virtually any type of recording you may need, although not all systems can provide all types (total, sample, record-on-demand, selective, business rules driven). Your telephony environment also impacts how a system can be implemented as well. But, there are always ways to get what you want. Just be sure whoever you talk to listens to your complete list of requirements before they launch into the benefits of their system. Be sure you discuss the benefits of each type of recording in your application. Don’t be afraid of paying for total recording, in most cases it is less expensive then random sampling.

Please keep in mind there is more to this process than just recording and evaluating agents’ interactions. If you record calls and have your supervisors or Quality staff evaluate them, don’t stop there. Up to this point you have only collected data and parked it. This is where the real impact of your system is realized. Now you need to be able to pull that data, in a format that means something to you, and deliver it to someone empowered to act on it (this functionality can be provided to the smaller centers as well). Who are your best agents? Do you know? Are you sure? Do your best agents (at least the ones you think are your best) have the longest or shortest handle time? Does handle time even have anything to do with the level of service provided to your customers? If these are your best agents, do they handle all products/services with the same level of competency? Do they close all sales, always up/cross sell? How can I share their skills with the rest of my agent population?

But that’s not all. There is a wealth of information here. These are your customers. What are they saying?

If You Listen, What Will You Find?

• Proactively address developing trends
• Better understanding of customers and their issues
• Product enhancements
• Adapting process changes (reducing handle time and maybe even call load)
• Impact of latest advertising campaign
• Reaction to new features/services
• Comments regarding competition
• Better, targeted training
  

I’m sure if you ask Marketing, Product development, Executive Management they’ll give you a list as long as your arm.

Indexing calls with business data can provide great information that can be shared across the entire enterprise. If the “other side” of the house wants to hear what the customers are saying it is easy for them to access and play.

How about incorporating a couple of marketing questions right into the agent evaluation form? Your supervisors are reviewing calls for quality purposes anyway; put a couple radio buttons, drop downs, even text. It will only take a couple of seconds and now Marketing can pull calls/reports based on this data.

The great thing about this information is it is real. No third party survey, no questionnaire, just your customers talking to your agents. Listen to their tone of voice, what are they asking, what are they saying about your processes/products/services. In their words, where does your company really stand with them?

What About Workforce Management?

Workforce Management systems cost can be very high, why? Typically the integration and associated professional services that enables these systems to automatically upload historical call data and real-time agent/call data used to create call forecasts. From these forecasts, the software predicts staffing and creates your schedules. These systems start in the $20,000 range.

Accurate scheduling is actually more important to the centers with less than 50 agents than the 150+ seats centers. Why? Well if an agent calls in sick at 8:45am to the 150 seat they can easily cover the eXTRa calls. That agent is less than 1% of their workforce. What happens if an agent calls in sick at 8:30am to a center that only staffs 25 agents? Ouch, now you’re scrambling and your service levels are blown for at least the morning. Or, you have seriously over staffed to proactively head off this type of situation…expensive. Either way you lose.

Expensive, a relative term, but if you have 15 to 70 agents that’s an easy question…yep. So are you stuck with spreadsheets and manual scheduling? No, not really. There are much more cost-effective options available for you. You can obtain a Workforce Optimization tool that will provide as accurate a schedule as the expensive systems. The only difference is you either manually import a file with the historical call data or some low-cost systems even automatically upload it. These systems range in price from $1,500 to $8,900 for 15 - 100 agents, depending on the number of agents to be scheduled. No special hardware or excessive professional services needed.

These systems can provide full schedules that can be shared with your agents via printout and/or Web interface. These systems use the same Erlang-C algorithm that the pricey systems use. You have the ability to do intra-day management, “what if” scenarios and even create holiday schedules to proactively prepare for the season. Some even provide the ability to run your forecasted schedule against a simulated switch to see how it performs. Make adjustments to address any issues that are presented and test it again, using these tuned stats to create your working schedule.

Workforce management is still “best guess technology” but these systems greatly reduce the margin of error. Reducing unneeded staff by a single agent or providing the ability to correctly staff for billing cycles, holidays and any other special staffing situations makes a huge impact on your ability to field calls. This impact on your service levels and payroll more than compensate for the investment. There is hope. Give these systems a look.

Learn More

As always, if you have call recording or call center questions, Contact Us for a no-obligation consultation with a call recording expert.