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Tag: Software for call centre

  • How to Record VoIP Calls Effectively?

    As per the report published by Persistence market research, the global VoIP market is estimated to achieve the mark of $194.5 billion in revenue by the end of 2024. Almost every small business to the big giant company is using VoIP for communication and at the same time using VoIP call recording to ensure accountability.

    Since VoIP is an advanced technology that comes with amazing features at a low price compared to traditional ones, the recording of calls is also different. Some VoIP service providers offer a call recording feature in their plans, but some offer this feature as an add-on at additional costs.

    Here in this article, you will get to know the procedure to record a VoIP call.

    What Is VoIP?
    Why Do Companies Need to Record VoIP Calls?
    Steps to Record VoIP Calls

    What Is VoIP?

    Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that enables seamless transmission of audio and video conversation over the internet. Using this technology one can easily avail the benefit of communicating with people using the internet connection. The audio or video data is converted into digital data in small data packets, then it is transmitted to the destination using the Internet network. The receiver receives this data packet combined to listen to the conversation.

    It provides the ability to make business calls from any location from any device through an internet connection. Unlike the traditional phone system, it saves a lot of money on normal calls and also on Long distance International calls.

    Not only voice calls but other mediums like video, chats, sending or receiving images, videos, and documents everything is possible because of VoIP technology. There is no boundation to stick with only one tool for communications but one can easily switch to their smartphone and make or receive a business call on it.

    Why Do Companies Need to Record VoIP Calls?

    VoIP is widely used by today’s businesses because of its flexibility and low-cost infrastructure. But while running business communication on VoIP, companies strongly need to record their every call. There are certain reasons companies do record the calls and some of the most prominent reasons are the following.

    • To prevent the business from future misunderstandings with clients. Sometimes when clients refuse their words, your call recording works as strong evidence.
    • Businesses also use call recordings for quality assurance. As a business owner, you always want your customers to be happy with your service. So it helps to ensure, no of your employees misbehaves with your customer.
    • Call recordings are also used by the companies for the training of the recruit. You might have heard the voice ” your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes” while communicating with any company.
    • It helps to reduce the legal risk if you have proof of any verbal commitment as a recording.
    • While working on a project for a client, sometimes you might require clarification from the previous conversation, and automatic call recording acts as a miracle at that time.
    Mobile VoIP Market size by Region

    Steps to Record VoIP Calls

    Coming back to the topic, below is the step-by-step process to help you to record VoIP calls. Since you can choose different software for your VoIP call recording but more or less the procedure is the same.

    Step 1: Choose the Right Software

    Choosing the right software to record calls is the first and most prominent step in our list. There could be many VoIP service providers available that are offering VoIP call recording features. Some include it in their plan while some offer it as an add-on. Here is a list of a few software providers who provide the call-recording feature.

    • RingCentral
    • 8×8
    • Nextiva
    • Vonage

    Choose any of the providers which suit your needs the best.

    Step 2: Configuration of Basic Settings

    Once you are done selecting the provider, the next step is configuring the basic call recording setting. To provide you with the context of how to use the call recording feature, we have taken the example of Nextiva.‌ Let us discuss how to record a call on Nextiva.

    Homepage

    ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌Once you are on the homepage dashboard of the software, you need to click on the manage option under the user’s tab.‌

    User Overview Page

    ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌After clicking on the user’s tab you’ll enter the user’s dashboard. Here you’ll see all your users and various options to configure. Just select the desired user for whom you want to record the call.‌‌


    Click here to get Nextiva

    User Manager Page

    ‌‌‌‌Once you click on any user, you’ll find the monitoring section, under this section there is an option for call recording. Just enable this call recording option for the user.

    You’ll find this option in different places based on your service provider.

    Step 3: Configure Call Recording Policies

    After completing all of the above steps, you need to choose your desired call recording policy from the dropdown menu. Below I’ve explained these policies in brief.

    Call Recording Options

    Always On

    When this option is selected, every call for that user will automatically start recording. The user will have no control over the recordings to start, stop, pause or resume. You can select this option if you want to record all the calls without giving control to the user.

    Always on With Pause and Resume

    This option also records all the calls automatically as soon as the calls start, but this option empowers the user to pause and resume the call recording whenever he/she wants. You can select this option if you want to give some control to the user.

    Users can pause the call recording by dialling *48 and resume the paused call recording by dialling *49.

    On-demand

    As the name suggests On-demand, which means VoIP call recording will start as soon as the user initiates the call but it will automatically get deleted if the user does not place the call on hold and dial *44.

    It means if the user wants to save this call recording, then he/she needs to put the call on hold and has to dial the feature code *44. This option will give much more flexibility to users.

    On-Demand With User-Initiated Call

    When this option is enabled, calls will not start recording automatically. In order to start the call recording, the user has to put the call on hold and dial *44. Another alternative is also available, user can dial this code before making the outbound Call to record the call.

    Never

    This option doesn’t allow the user to record any of the calls. Even the user can’t record any call using any of the feature codes like*44.

    Step 4: Good to Go

    After selecting your recording policy for the user, you can select the other option which is easy to configure. Like if you want to make the announcement that the call recording is being started or stopped, then you can check the option. Similarly, you can easily configure other basic settings.‌‌

    Now you are good to go to record all your business calls. Keep in mind that I’ve taken the example of Nextiva but you can choose any provider, settings and features might be up or down but the functionality is the same.

    Conclusion

    Call recording is a widely used feature in the business. empower your business by leveraging the feature of call recording. Call recording, even today, is quite challenging if you don’t have the right tools. Follow our step-by-step guide to record your VoIP calls and run your business with full accountability. It helps individuals and companies maintain accountability for verbal commitments. Automatic call recording using your VoIP phone system helps you run a more successful business.

    FAQ

    Can VoIP phone calls be recorded?

    VoIP calls can be recorded via streaming audio recording applications. Streaming audio recorders can be useful for home-based recording.

    How do I record a VoIP call on Windows 10?

    The keyboard shortcut Windows+Alt+R allows you to record VoIP calls on your PC quickly.

    What is the best free app for recording phone calls?

    The List of some of the best software is

    • RingCentral
    • 8×8
    • Nextiva
    • Vonage

    Can we automatically record all calls?

    Some VoIP call recording software allows you to manually select which phone conversations you want to record, while others support automatic audio recordings of all phone calls.

  • How to Setup a Call Centre Business? | Steps to Follow

    With the world economy shifting its focus to the service sector, call centres have become a very important and inevitable endeavour in the business world. As lucrative as it may sound, it is not an easy task to set up a call centre business. It requires a lot of planning, visualisation and promptness in executing these plans. This article will give a layout of how to go about starting a call centre business.

    Steps to Follow for Setting up a Call Centre

    How to Respond to a client’s “I’m Not Interested”? 

    Steps to Follow for Setting up a Call Centre

    Setting up a call centre requires a great amount of research, planning, technology, and proper execution. The following are the basic steps one needs to follow when setting up a call centre business:

    Size of Call Centre Market Worldwide in 2020 With a Forecast in 2027
    Size of Call Centre Market Worldwide in 2020 With a Forecast in 2027

    Deciding the Type of Setup

    There are different ways to go about setting up a business. Hence, it is of utmost importance to have a clear idea of the nitty-gritty of the business that is being established. In the case of call centre businesses, there are two types – On-site call centres and Virtual call centres. As the name rightly conveys, an on-site call centre functions from a physical office which is ideal for a big team with high compliance and strong security requirements. On the other hand, virtual call centres operate remotely with most of the client interaction happening through the internet. While this is less expensive, it is important to use the right tools to avoid its flip sides adversely affecting the business.

    The right fit for a call centre business will depend on a lot of factors including the number of employees being hired, clients, their requirements, nature of the data handled, the kind of assistance that needs to be provided and so on. Based on the basic decision made, further variations of the call centre have to be finalised.

    Identifying the Main Focus

    Narrowing down the vision and goals of any business is important considering the number of details that are dependent on this decision. The nature of the service that is being provided and the industry on which the call centre will be focusing have to be decided beforehand. A call centre, depending on its focus may be the one that cold calls the clients with offers or might be focused on resolving customer issues.

    The call centres that take up incoming calls and focus on customer complaint resolution are called inbound call centres. On the other hand, the call centres that are run by a sales team to sell their offers and products are called outbound call centres. So, the next step is to decide whether you want to focus on the inbound or outbound call centres.

    Setting a Framework

    Having a framework is necessary to streamline the business operations along the lines of its larger goals and visions before the business is set up. The framework should include a clear layout of how many people should be employed, the processes that have to be implemented, operations that have to be handled and the bifurcation of the costs involved amongst other things.

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    Finding Location

    This is the most important part of setting up a call centre business wherein there are a lot of legal and geographical aspects that need to be considered. Countries like India and the Philippines are largely prioritised for setting up call centre businesses due to their low wages, suitable corporate laws and low setup costs. However, offshoring call centre business to foreign countries only for the sake of financial benefits can be a risky affair, if one is not completely aware of the ways in which things work in different countries.

    Handling the Paperwork

    The hassle caused by the amount of documentation to set up a call centre can be tiring. It is important to steer clear of any issues that are associated with it. Before starting any business for that matter, it is essential to talk to a lawyer and stay in touch with the local government to ensure that the paperwork is updated and clear. If the call centre business is being offshored, extra paperwork is inevitable. Relevant professional help has to be taken so as to cater to the needs of foreign legal documentation and procedures.

    Making a Budget

    A call centre business calls for specific expenses catering to the focus and goals of the company which needs to be carefully managed. The business will have to spend on call centre equipment, websites, marketing, infrastructure, salaries etc. If the budget for each of these expenses is not laid down properly, it can lead to unnecessary spending. What constitutes the right budget will depend purely on the nature of the respective call centre business. Hence, deciding on a realistic budget is very important in the case of setting up a call centre business just as in the case of other businesses.

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    Building a Strong Team

    No matter how good the business idea is, the human resource that guides the idea into perfection is the crucial part of it. Hence, who and how you hire is a very important detail. Depending on the nature, size and requirements of the call centre business, there should be a precise layout on the number of employees to be hired. A virtual call centre has the additional advantage of being able to hire talents from any part of the world without housing and immigration becoming a problem.

    Building a strong team is not just about hiring people, but also about having the right mix of talents and clarity in the nature of standards that the entire process of hiring needs to be kept in mind. The team-building process doesn’t end here, they have to be trained appropriately to carry out the specific tasks of the respective business. For this, relevant training and development programmes have to be organised every now and then to ensure better productivity.

    Global Call Centre Share by Different Segments
    Global Call Centre Share by Different Segments

    Using the Right Tools

    The correct usage of relevant tools is the smart way of doing business when it comes to running a call centre business. Some of the common tools that any call centre business needs to have are the Business Phone System as a basic phone system cannot handle the heavy traffic of phone calls that comes its way. Another important tool that would be handy is a CRM System (Customer Relationship Management System) which will help you store customer records and access them whenever necessary. A CRM will help the call centre handle a large amount of data and contacts in a single button.

    A call centre business not only has to communicate with their clients but also with their team. In order to facilitate this communication, an Internal Communication System has to be established as well. Software like Zendesk, CloudTalk, and more are excellent options that are being used by virtual call centres these days.

    Conclusion

    Setting up a call centre business can be really profitable but it is not an easy task. It requires a lot of planning and financial discipline. As far as this business is concerned, outsourcing call centres to other countries is a common practice. In that case, utmost attention has to be given to the legal aspects of that particular country. Having a clear focus, hiring the right people and using the right tools can help the call centre business establish itself in the most successful manner.

    FAQs

    What types of companies have call centres?

    The following business industries use call centres to improve their efficiency and promote customer satisfaction:

    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare Services
    • Consulting Services
    • Automobile Mechanics
    • Utility Providers

    What are the 3 types of call centres?

    The 3 types of call centres are:

    • Inbound call centres
    • Outbound call centres
    • Virtual call centres

    What skills are needed for a call centre?

    A call centre agent should have the following skills:

    • Good verbal communication skills
    • Good listening skills
    • Patience
    • Empathy
    • Problem-solving skills
    • Understanding of the products or services being offered