Compared to selective recording typically used in contact centers and related organizations to improve agent performance, evaluate customer service and support quality monitoring, bulk recording encompasses a fundamentally different paradigm with unique goals and purposes.
Financial institutions typically use it for compliance, protection from liability and verification of transactions. Government regulations establish certain parameters for financial organizations and a record of all communications is essential. This must be maintained for all types of interactions including VoIP, traditional telephony, email and other screen activities.
Recordings must be archived or stored online in case of dispute, and a mechanism for backup must be included in case of power failure or other potential interruptions. Otherwise operations must be halted at considerable expense.
For financial institutions receiving orders from customers, a careful record and verification of each transaction must be maintained. Doing so provides protection for the customer and organization alike. If just one conversation is missing, the institution is vulnerable to an unfounded lawsuit or the customer may receive inferior service.
Public safety organizations represent a second group requiring bulk recording. In combination with time stamps and Caller ID information, it documents response rates, allows instant analysis of incoming communications through features such as last call repeat, simultaneous calls and radio playback, and can even play back a call while it’s in progress.
Many types of public safety groups demand bulk recording including emergency dispatch centers, first responders and airport controllers. For these organizations an accurate and complete record can actually save lives.
Even contact centers need a form of bulk recording to protect the safety of agents. Those who receive threatening calls can use a keep/delete mode at any point during a conversation to determine whether a recording is saved in full, from the beginning. To protect the agent’s privacy switching back to the delete mode ensures the communication will be erased.
Bulk recording systems vary widely in their capabilities but the buyer should ensure certain minimum requirements are met:
Storage – The best solutions can store hundreds of thousands of hours online to avoid the need for additional hardware. Alternatively they should function with archiving devices using Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT), internal or USB Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) or Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Backup – Redundancy is an absolute must for financial institutions and public safety agencies. High-end products may utilize RAID 0, 1 or 5 hard disks, hot-swap hard disks, redundant power supplies and even hot-standby recorders for fail-safe operations.
Retrieval – Calls are typically stored with index data for easy retrieval. Solutions should allow searching by date, time, channel, duration, incoming or outgoing phone number, customer account number, agent ID, or comments appended to the conversation. Priority calls may also be grouped together in a call collection box for easy access.
Bulk recording offers unique features, modes of operations and capabilities for many types of organizations. Solutions should be evaluated for both selective and bulk operation. centralized and easy to set up and administer in a unit designed to meet changing needs.
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