Call Monitoring: Everything you need to know

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Table of Contents

 

What is Call Monitoring?

Call monitoring is the process of recording and listening in on phone calls between customers, call center agents and businesses. The purpose of call monitoring is typically to evaluate the quality of customer service, identify training opportunities for employees, or to generate leads.

 

Benefits of call monitoring

Have you ever heard the words “This call may be recorded for call quality monitoring and training purposes”, or something similar? Whichever business you were calling used some form of Call Monitoring, such as Convirza

Call Tracking allows managers new agents, administrators and agents themselves to analyze their performance with custom metrics.

 

Here are some more benefits call monitoring provides:
  • By recording calls you can identify areas where agents need additional training or coaching.
  • Call monitoring allows you to score calls and track agent progress over time. This information can be used to set goals and target areas for improvement. Finally, call monitoring provides supervisors with a valuable resource for giving feedback, setting goals and supporting agents.
  • Ensuring quality customer service: Call monitoring can help you ensure that your customers are receiving the best possible service. You can use recordings to identify problem areas and make changes to improve the overall customer experience.
  • Providing specific coaching: Rather than relying on metrics or customer feedback alone, supervisors can judge firsthand how agents are performing and provide specific feedback. This helps avoid generic coaching and provides specific examples to help with training.
  • Make intelligent, Data-Driven Decisions: Data is the key driver of business decisions. Monitoring calls gives you exact metrics on close rates, what your best agents are saying, which customers are most likely to become clients, and so much more.
  • Creating consistency and accountability within any team: Consistency and accountability breed success. Agents know what metrics to hit and have the tools to reach them. Importantly, YOU have the data to know how to help them
  • Plan long-term strategy: With call monitoring, marketing can diagnose which leads are the best. Customer service can better support customers. Sales knows who is calling, why they are calling and how to best close deals.
 

Here is an example on how AI provides insights from monitored calls.

Will my business benefit from call monitoring?

You’ve heard the automated message from a business letting you know your call is being recorded for their call quality assurance.

Any business, in any industry, that conducts business over the phone can benefit from call monitoring.

Customer service and support

Customer service is the key to a profitable business. It’s no secret that retaining a customer is up to 7 times more profitable than acquiring a new one. Your support departments can use call monitoring to see agent performance and identify areas where customers fall of. Agents can be scored and receive actionable feedback, with measured implementation.

Customer support agents can be assessed on how well they helped a customer, followed company protocol, their efficiency, customer satisfaction, and any other metric your business would like to measure.

In addition, call center monitoring software is also useful for guiding you to the common problems and concerns your customers face. Customers are your greatest point of learning. This allows you to take proactive steps to solve issues customers may face, better your application or implement better processes. Learn the reasons behind a customer fire starting, so you can put them out before they begin.

Sales departments

Having sales representatives at the top of their game is essential for any business.

With call monitoring, sales managers and contact centers can listen to any call in real time. They can take previously recorded calls for training purposes.

Your best reps can share their monitored calls as a roadmap for success. These calls can be shared with other departments to align your marketing mission.

In addition, managers and reps can share feedback on insights on the call. Convirza combines with call monitoring, so you get additional analytics in real time. This call monitoring feature also allows AI to create a transcript of your call. This is useful for training, legal and documentation purposes.

Call centers and automated phone services

On a mass scale, automated, call center monitoring and monitoring is vital for the success of a large organization. Call centers can utilize artificial intelligence to comb through large amounts of data while extracting individualized insights.

Call centers have increase risk of legal troubles due to high volumes of calls. Recording and monitoring all calls provides the center agent a proven record and safety net, should anything occur.

Similar to the benefits with sales and customer support, call centers can utilize individualized reports, metrics, and more as a result of the call center monitoring.

Marketing departments

Your Marketing team utilizes call monitoring to evaluate what leads they are bringing in. Synergy between your own sales team and marketing is essential. Call monitoring fills the gap of knowledge. Marketing can listen to incoming leads, hear they questions and concerns, and create campaigns to find the best clients.

Marketing is able to make use of Conversation Analytics for deeper insights into a potential customers journey.

How do I start call monitoring?

First, you’ll need to choose a call monitoring software solution that fits your needs. Make sure the software solution includes the basics. It needs to:

  • Record all calls without any downtime.
  • Include call times, durations, and any notes or recordings from the calls.
  • Compliant with all laws and regulations (more below).
  • Allow both inbound and outbound call monitoring.
  • Ease of use & implementation.
  • Ongoing cost savings from reduced costs and increased revenue.
  • Bonus points for AI tools that empower agents to provide an enhanced customer experience!
 

Next, you’ll want to determine your key objectives for call monitoring. Are you looking to improve agent performance, AI coaching, a call center platform or a white labelled product? Each of these may lead you to a different conclusion.

You’ll gain valuable insights into how your agents are performing and where there may be areas for improvement. You can use this information to identify training opportunities for your agents and make changes to your customer service approach to drive better results.

Once you’ve decided on a software, implementation is simple. You’ll get access to the pltform ans suite of tools. The technical side should be handled by the provider. With a strong provider you’ll have a quick turn around and you’re up and running!

Call monitoring can be a powerful tool for improving your business’s customer service and agent performance. By starting with the right call monitoring software and setting clear goals for your monitoring efforts, you can unlock the full potential of this powerful tool.

What are the legal impacts of calls being monitored and recorded?

States require different types of consent in order for a call to be recorded. Internationally, there are different standards for call monitoring. Convirza will help you through each step of the way.

There are two types of consent in order for calls to be monitored.

  • One-party consent where only one side of the live call (usually the caller) is required.
  • Two-party consent is where both parties consent is required.
 

An automated message stating the call is being recorded and the caller continuing to speak with a representative (in most cases) count as consent.

If you are in one of these 11 states, you are required to get the agreement of both parties for a call to be recorded:

  1. California
  2. Connecticut
  3. Florida
  4. Illinois
  5. Maryland
  6. Massachusetts
  7. Michigan
  8. Montana
  9. New Hampshire
  10. Pennsylvania
  11. Washington.
 

Depending on your industry other laws may apply. These include HIPAA, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Convirza is HIPPA, PCI DAA and SOC compliant, as well as other legal requirements.

Are laws for monitoring and recording different?
In short, yes, although in most instances if you have consent to monitor a call, you can also record. To be safe, there are two types of consent which allow a business to monitor calls.

With one-party consent states your agents can grant consent. In two-party-consent states every party involved needs to grant consent. Here at Convirza, we do not want any clients to be liable for “eavesdropping” or “wiretapping”. This is why we help businesses in every state to comply with all local and federal regulations.

Is Monitoring Calls the same as Call Recordings?

Monitoring calls is separate from call recordings, although they are similar. In many businesses, the words are used interchangeably. This includes the ability to actively listen to a call while it is happening. A call recording is distinct; it is a record of that call saved for future use.

Call Monitoring Software Capabilities
Call Whispering

This call center software features gives the monitor the option to give assistance to an agent during a live call. Only the agent can hear the monitor’s comments, not the caller! The caller is unable to hear and is unaware of the monitor’s presence during the call. This provides quality assurance without interrupting the customers experience.

Live Call Barging

This call center software feature allows someone to listen to a live call and join the call to speak with both the agent and caller. This allows

Call Recording

Hosted call recording is a standard call center software feature that records inbound and/or outbound calls. This is done for each and every department. Whether it is sales, customer support, marketing or others, call recording is a valuable tool.

These calls are saved and can be organized using call tags. This allows you to group training calls, champion calls and other calls on a need-basis. Calls are then available for easy access for training and review later.

Agent Performance Scorecards

Many contact center solutions include live quality monitoring features. This allows supervisors and managers to score agent performance during or after listening to a live call.

This is similar to manual call scoring, except completed by artificial intelligence. Evaluation forms measure service level related to the company’s KPIs, expectations for customer service, or other metrics relevant to the department. Many companies use these to monitor SLA adherence, and even manage bonus structure.

How does Call Monitoring Help with Remote Workers?

Call monitoring provides call logs of every outbound and inbound call. This includes timestamps, length of call and the outcome of the call.

Your remote workers can have clear expectations and metrics for success. Call monitoring is a valuable tool to lead your teams towards your organizations goals.

Call monitoring holds workers accountable. You cannot fake the number of outbound or inbound calls that are recorded. A computer will give you precise information about what each worker is doing and at what times.

Automatic reports to a manager or administrator allow them to quickly identify areas where workers may need additional assistance. We don’t encourage micromanagement, but it does allow for accountability within any organization.

How do I know which call monitoring software is right for me?

Naturally, looking at a call-monitoring system can be intimidating. They take time to integrate, they can be expensive and there is a definite learning curve. Implementation is time-consuming, but the rewards are definitely worth it.

We recommend you consider these factors when looking at a call monitoring software:

  • How big is your team that will be using it?
  • Which departments will be monitoring your calls?
  • Do you want administrators and managers in the business to be more involved in calls with agents?
  • What type of reports and metrics do you need?
  • Which bells and whistles, such as opportunity alerts, would best suit your needs?
 

Without tooting our own horn too much, we provide the most robust and comprehensive call monitoring solutions to date. We implore anyone to test as many services as possible, because we have seen customers come back to Convirza over and over again. Over 50,000 rooftops and a billion-plus calls recorded aren’t rookie numbers.

What tools does Convirza offer?

When looking for call monitoring tools to power your business, there are some important features to put on your due diligence list. The best call monitoring software for your contact center will provide:

  • Lead Scoring. Artificial Intelligence creates your buyer persona and qualifies prospects.
  • Call Scoring. Know exactly where your agents can improve, where they do well and what you can do to help them.
  • Analyzing calls to mine specific data, using Convirza’s industry leading Conversation Analytics.
  • Whisper Messages. These short messages allow your team to know where calls are coming from BEFORE they pick up the phone.
  • Legal compliance.
  • Integration across channels, from texting, to emails to phone calls.
  • Call routing, allowing you to align the customer journey with the best agent possible.
  • Reporting for managers, supervisors and administration.
  • Customizable metrics for any team member who picks up the phone.
  • Responsive and quick customer service.
  • A multitude of integrations with common platforms (*Link* Talk with us to learn more*)
  • Infinite scalability for any team.
  • Accountability for your remote workers.
  • Since the pandemic has started, not over 70% of phone workers state they prefer to work remotely.
 
Call Scoring Checklist

At Convirza, we provide the best customer service to make any transition as smooth as possible. In addition, we offer a 21-day Free trial so you can work out any roadblocks before deciding on a software. Take Convirza for a test-drive today.

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