Once a tool for large corporations and enterprises call recording is now a readily available feature for small businesses.
In fact, it has become an essential feature for small businesses looking to improve operations, enhance customer service, and ensure legal compliance.
As a small business, we’re often referring back to call recordings for all manner of reasons. Maybe we misheard an email address, or need to revisit a sales enquiry to better understand the customer’s requirements.
In this article we’ll explore why call recording is so important for your small business, what are the different call recording solutions, and how you can setup call recording.
What is Call Recording?
Call recording is a feature of your telephone system that allows your small business to automatically or manually record telephone conversations. Call recording captures and stores audio files of your call recordings in a central location.
For small businesses, the importance of call recording goes beyond having backups of conversations. It provides valuable insights into customer interactions, helps with staff training, and ensures compliance with industry regulations. Being able to replay a customer call to better understand their concerns or having a clear record of verbal agreements can save time, money, and potential misunderstandings.
The Different Types of Call Recording for Small Business
Once an enterprise-level feature, call recording is now available to small businesses across the UK, but there are a few different ways to do it.
Cloud-based Call Recordings
Most small businesses in the UK utilise modern telephone systems are cloud-based. This means that your business doesn’t have a ‘box on the wall’ at your premises—instead a cloud solution controls incoming and outgoing calls.
Call recordings on these cloud-based solutions are stored in the cloud, and can be accessed from anywhere. And example of a cloud-based telephone system is 3CX. 3CX stores your call recordings which can then be accessed from the mobile or desktop app.
On-Premise Call Recordings
An old fashioned way for your business to control calls is through an on-premise PBX telephone system. On-premise PBX phone systems are physical bits of hardware that sit in your business premises and control calls from internal and external lines.
With a legacy on-premise PBX, your small business would need some additional physical hardware to record and store telephone calls. The hardware connects to your system in the office and has to be manually accessed. Quite often these legacy systems also need to be manually wiped to ensure there is enough storage room for future recordings.
Mobile Call Recordings
The third type of call recording is mobile. Small businesses need to be agile, and mobile working has unlocked a whole world of opportunities for flexibility, but call recording is often an afterthought.
With modern cloud-based telephone systems, your users can make and receive apps from your mobile, just as though you were sat at your desk—and these calls can be recorded and stored alongside your main calls from your deskphones for easy access.
Why is Call Recording Important for Small Businesses?
Call recording can be a vital asset for your small business, from legal and compliance to staff training, despite resolution and more. Here are a few of the top reasons why we recommend call recording to small businesses…
1. Resolving Disputes
It’s not pretty, but arguably one of the biggest reasons to implement call recordings is for better dispute resolution. Small businesses don’t have big compliance and legal teams, and disputes that get out of hand can be costly and time consuming.
Call recording protects your small business from any potential issues that can arise. It also offers your staff a level of comfort on the phone knowing that should the worst happen, these is evidence to support them and the business.
2. Improving Customer Service
By recording your small businesses calls, your team can review interactions and identify areas for improvement. Perhaps something was missed from a sales call? Or a team member communicated something very well to a customer and you’d like to share that with the team?
Call recordings unlock the ability to proactively share data and information to improve your customer service and keep everyone on the same page.
3. Training New Staff
In a small business, training new staff or up-skilling existing staff is a resource-intensive activity. By utilising call recordings, your team can quickly and easily pick up on how existing staff communicate with customers and prospects.
Giving new staff ‘homework’ to listen to calls from senior team members reduces the onboarding time, saves money and makes the initial settling period more seamless.
4. Retention of Customer Details
How many times have you been on a call and the written down the email address wrong? Or maybe the customer gave you their name as a car was driving by and you misheard it?
Call recordings offer a vital record of what was said on the call, and the ability to go back in the future and double check that their details are correct is hugely important in avoiding those embarrassing ‘sorry I wrote down your email wrong’ calls.
5. Ensuring Legal and Regulatory Compliance
In the UK, industries such as finance, healthcare, and legal services have strict regulations requiring call recording, no matter the size of the business. Implementing a reliable call recording solution means you and your customers are both protected.
6. Enhanced Business Insights and Performance Monitoring
Call recordings can help analyse customer pain points and preferences, as well as measuring employee performance. This data can then be used to help refine sales and support strategies.
With call recording, your small business can track common queries, leading to better FAQs and service improvements.
7. Summarisation
Having a record of everything said on the phone sounds good, but if your call is 20 minutes long, then it’s unlikely that you’ll listen back to it.
With new AI tools and summarisation, you’re able to generate a comprehensive summary of your telephone call, giving you a quick flying overview of the important points without the time spent revisiting the whole thing.
How to Set Up Call Recording for Your Small Business
1. Understand your telephone system
Before implementing call recording solution at your small business, it’s important assess your current telephone system.
Are you using a traditional on-premise PBX, a VoIP system, or a cloud-based phone solution? Understanding your infrastructure will help determine compatibility with recording solutions. If you’re unsure, speak to our team to see what options are available for call recording integration.
2. Work out which call recording solution you require
Once you understand your businesses telephone system, you can choose a call recording solution that fits your requirements. Consider factors like storage capacity, security, and whether you need automated or manual recording.
3. Set up your call recording
This can be the tricky bit. After selecting a solution, it is important to configure it to work with your telephone system.
If you’re unsure how to implement your solution, speak to our team today. We have in-house engineers available to assist your small business in the implementation and roll out of a call recording solution.
4. Train your team
Once your call recording system is setup, it’s essential to educate your team. Inform them about the legal requirements, such as notifying customers before recording calls, and pausing call recordings during card payments.
Also think about training on how to access and use recordings once they have been stored. Well trained staff will be able to extract the most from call recordings, improving quality control, dispute resolution, and customer service.
5. Monitor and optimise
Once call recording is in place it is important to continuously review its effectiveness. Why not listen to recordings to identify customer trends, service gaps, and areas where staff may need additional training?
It is important to regularly update policies to reflect changing regulations and business needs. Optimisation ensures you get the most value from your call recording system while maintaining compliance and efficiency.
Call recording can be a hugely important tool in the right hands. Ensuing your small business has compliant, safe and relaxed communication between your staff and customers should be a priority, and a reliable call recording system gives you the tools to effectively manage your business.
If you’d like to invest in a call recording solution for your small business, speak to our team today for some no obligation advise.
