6 Ways Call Recording Can Help to Understand the Customer Journey

Mid-market vs SME solutions
The key difference between selling call recording to SMEs and mid-market companies is that the mid-market is more likely to request integration with CRM or other corporate systems.  The focus when selling to the mid-market should be on externalizing information, so it is important to have strong APIs available.  This size of company tends to want to do more with call recording but in a centralized way.  

We believe that the most effective way to sell call recording is to start by understanding their business needs and challenges.  Many companies will strive to improve customer service to increase customer retention and satisfaction, in order to impact the bottom line and achieve competitive advantage.  Creating a good customer experience is all about knowing what the customer wants and how the customer wants to obtain it.  Listening to call recordings provides instant feedback and delivers qualitative research. 

Call analytics coupled with call recording is a powerful combination and is vital to truly understanding the whole ‘customer journey’.  

6 ways call recording can be used in practice to help understand the customer journey
When selling, channel partners should emphasize the benefits of call recording in practice:

1. Return missed calls: Return missed calls before they call a competitor, to instantly impact customer satisfaction levels.  Listen to call recordings to hear how successful this approach can be.
2. Call resolution: Calculate call resolution time and understand the effort required to resolve customer queries by tracking call history and listening to the calls. 
3. Analyze call wait time: Track how long a caller waits to be answered or called back, then assess how the call progresses by listening to the call recording. From this it can be determined if the call outcome was negatively affected by the wait time.  
4. Analyze call handling: Listen to call recordings to hear what was said at company, branch or an individual customer level. Use these call recordings to:
   • Train staff: Select call recordings to use as examples, to help improve techniques. This method can also be used externally to train or support customers.
   • Identify top performers: Reward successful staff that go above and beyond to impact customer satisfaction.  Use their techniques to enhance company policy. 
   • Perform spot checks: Playback random call recordings to maintain and improve company standards.  
   • Resolve disputes immediately: Act fast when a dispute is raised and rescue defecting customers.  Listen to the call recording immediately and resolve any discrepancies quickly.
   • Use call recording insight for predictive intelligence: Incoming calls can be flagged or redirected appropriately.
5. Streamline processes: Analyze call volumes and historical trends to reveal customer service workflow issues across the business and ensure procedures are correctly scripted.  Breakdowns in workflow can be identified by following the trail of conversations that took place.
6. Link call recordings to CRM data: Detailed information on customer calls linked to CRM data highlights important observations to facilitate decision-making in line with business KPIs.  Perform regular reviews on customers that have upgraded / downgraded or closed their account.  

The telephone is a source for significant insight whilst it remains the preferred method for immediate customer interaction. Call activity happens in real‐time, providing instant feedback for better and quicker decisions. Incorporating call analytics and call recording to any customer service strategy provides business leaders with the assurance that decisions are based on a more complete picture of customers’ behaviour.  

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