Records of phone calls can come in far handier than you may imagine in a wide range of different situations, from personal to professional.
Here are ten examples where Call Recording can be a real lifesaver
1. Evidence for legal cases
If you’re involved in a legal case where it’s your word against another person’s, a recorded phone call could provide the vital evidence that wins the claim for you. You’ll need to check with your solicitor whether this evidence would be permissible by a court, under what terms, and the legalities of recording a call. However, if you know that someone is lying in court and you have recorded evidence that proves it, this kind of proof could be absolutely essential.
2. Conversations with your legal counsel
Not all advice provided to you by your solicitor is written down, nor are communications always carried out via email. If this were the case, it’d be much easier to search your emails or refer back to legal advice on paper. Many people instead receive legal advice by phone, which can be a real-time-saver but is not great if you need to use the advice later. Recording the conversation, with your solicitor’s permission, can help you keep a record of what was discussed. In complicated legal cases, recorded calls can be essential when it comes to keeping on track with the progress of the case and which decisions were made when. Many solicitors may even suggest recording calls themselves, as it helps them keep records of conversations with clients for professional use.
3. Agreements with tradespeople and contractors
In informal arrangements, such as instructing a builder to carry out work on your house, there’s not always a written contract in place. You’re likely to explain the job, receive a quote from the tradesperson to carry out the work, and the job gets done, where you pay the bill afterwards. Many agreements are made by phone. But what happens if the builder rips you off or tries to charge more than agreed for the work? A recorded phone call could help solve any disputes and, if needed, resolve the situation from a legal standpoint.
4. Conference calls
More and more of us work remotely, which means that meetings are often conducted over the phone. Keeping minutes for these meetings, where many people are likely to be speaking at once, can be a nightmare. It’s far easier to record the call, write it up later and be clear about who is responsible for which actions.
5. Sales calls
If you’re a sales manager and you overhear one of your team making an amazing sales pitch to a client over the phone, wouldn’t it be great if you could use their technique to train new recruits? You’ll have this valuable example to use if you record sales calls. There’s another major benefit to recording sales calls too, which is to provide a better service to your clients. Anyone chasing up a lead or providing aftercare will be able to listen to previous calls and know exactly where the case is up to, what was discussed and what the client’s main concerns were. This information can be used to personalise the service provided to the satisfaction of the client.
6. Carrying out interviews
If you’re a journalist interviewing a subject over the phone, you don’t want to spend all of your time scribbling away in your notebook. Ideally, you’ll be engaged in the conversation, listening actively and putting the other person at ease. Recording conversations means you can write up your notes and refer back to the interview later so that you can be fully present at the time. It also means you get quotes spot on and never have trouble reading your writing.
7. Calling a call centre
Trying to get support from a call centre can sometimes be extremely frustrating. If you have to call more than once, you end up speaking to a new person each time and have to start explaining the issue from the start. If you don’t receive good service or you want to make progress, recording the call can help. This gives you a lot of information, from the name of who you spoke to (it can sometimes be difficult to remember) to any prices, quotes or technical details you’re given during the call.
8. Checking in with your business when you aren’t there
One of the ways that business owners use phone call recording is to find out how their staff behave when they’re away. So, the next time you go on holiday, set up call recording and then listen back to customer service calls made and taken by your team when you return. Hopefully, you’ll have nothing to complain about, but checking that standards are being upheld can be reassuring.
9. Training new team members
Just like with sales calls, it can be very useful for a new team member to have examples of different kinds of customer calls to listen to. They can hear how the representative dealt with the issue and prepare themselves for the issues that may emerge with clients.
10. Planning, problem-solving and ideas sessions
Start recording the calls if you regularly discuss plans with colleagues over the phone during your morning commute. Remember that you can’t always rely on one party to make notes; an important idea could be forgotten.
It’s easy to set up Call Recording
It’s far cheaper and simpler to start recording your calls than you may think. There are call recording devices available for landlines and mobile phones. With a landline device, you need to plug the recorder into a spare BT socket, while with smartphones, you can wirelessly transmit the recording over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
Before you start, it is worth double-checking (either with the person or people you’ll be recording or a solicitor) that recording the call is ok. For example, a salesperson will need to inform the customer that they are being recorded, although call recording for your own reference doesn’t usually require permission provided you take care not to lose, share or sell the recording.