Anyone who calls a customer service or tech support line has gotten that “this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes” announcement in their lifetime. That typically means that the contact center you called has a recording system and most likely will record your call, whether it’s to understand how their employees handle customer calls or possibly by law to meet specific compliance purposes. The expansion of Skype for Business in the enterprise is slowly replacing the traditional phone system and the number of options to record calls is limited to a few companies. With such a narrow choice of products, why should you record your Skype for Business calls?
The answers are simple. I’ve outlined a few bullets that will help you decide on whether you should record or not.
Protection – Any verbal transaction that involves your company and a customer or partner should always be recorded. A recording will protect your company and employees during verbal monetary transactions, no matter how big or how small the transaction is. Further, in cases where specific laws take place, such as financial investments or order by phone, it is required by law to record the conversation. More importantly, even if it’s a casual conversation between an employee and customer, the minute a commitment is involved, the conversation should be recorded. This will help in cases of disputes where the customer or employee may make a claim of “he said, she said”. Recordings don’t lie, the conversation can simply be played back and the dispute can be settle. Even in cases where there is no contact center, like in finance for instance, your finance administrator may not speak with customers on a regular basis but at times calls might get escalated to them. In these situations, wouldn’t it be great to recording the conversation so that there are no discrepancies? By using Record on Demand, the conversation can be recorded and saved for future reference.
Understanding Your Customer – By recording conversations between your employees and customers, the organization can get a better picture of how it communicates with its customers and how its employees are positioning the company and its products. Sampling conversations can easily provide a picture of what your customers are looking for, or perhaps outline areas of improvement for your organization. Sometimes it’s not what the customers says, but rather how the customer says it or implies it. You can’t get that from your employee. They can only provide you a recollection of what was said, and in their view only. Recordings provide an unbiased view of the conversation where management can make informed decisions.
Compliance – Compliance is at the forefront of every conversation in the enterprise. Many companies have Compliance Officers that manage communications between the firm and its customers. With the expansion of data breaches, hacking oblog.af technology and identity theft, compliance laws have been implemented over the past few years to protect consumer information such as personal financial information (social security numbers, credit card information, etc.) and even healthcare information from being exposed. Further, laws such as MAD II (Market Abuse and Market Manipulation) which protects the consumer from misleading or misguided information on financial investment vehicles. MAD II manages the company’s sales practices and protects the company from disreputable trades. Other compliance laws such as MIFID II, which is scheduled to be implemented in the European Union in July 2017 stretches the compliance monitoring standard from investment brokers to sales, administrative personnel and certified financial planners. So, the expansion of compliance is requiring that conversations or basically any communication with the consumer be recorded. With that requirement, Skype for Business users must have both voice and chat (IM) sessions recorded to protect the consumer and allow the firm to monitor the activity of their employees.
SmartTAP is AudioCodes Skype for Business recording platform. Built specifically to support Skype for Business, SmartTAP provides a secure, tamper proof environment to record both voice and chat sessions, either consistently, or on a Record on Demand / Save on Demand basis. Through SmartTAP’s Media Server protection, Skype for Business calls are never exposed to the internet, thus adding another layer of protection from outside intrusion. SmartTAP also stores voice and chat sessions in an encrypted environment, with a Digital Signature added, where original recordings can never be touched. Expanding SmartTAP throughout the organization is easy by deploying the Skype for Business Toolbar that embeds directly into the Skype for Business client. Tagging calls, recording calls on demand are made easy by simply selecting the SmartTAP option on the Skype for Business client. These capabilities only scratch the surface of what SmartTAP can do for your Skype for Business deployment. Find out more by visiting our website at https://www.audiocodes.com/solutions-products/products/products-for-microsoft-365/smarttap-360-recording.