Call Monitoring Key Terms

Call monitoring terminology can help you find the best solutions for your company

Many businesses that have not previously used call monitoring are now required to do so by state or federal regulations. If your business is among these, keep in mind that while call monitoring requires a financial investment, the benefits to your company may outweigh the costs. You can use your call monitoring system to evaluate employee performance, improve in-house coaching and training, assess your internal processes and even facilitate conflict resolution, when that need arises.

Here are some of the current trends and terms:

On-premise VoIP

Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) allows your business to make, receive and record calls over the Internet at a considerable cost savings compared to the cost of land line services. On-premises VoIP means that a company purchases and maintains its own servers and phone switching equipment in house. Start up costs are higher, compared to hosted VOIP.

Hosted VoIP

With hosted VoIP, a third party vendor provides a company's VoIP service. Clients use the vendor's servers, which are located at the vendor's site. This is the less expensive way to utilize a VoIP system, often making it a good choice for companies just beginning to monitor their calls.

Screen recording

Screen recording captures on video the full computer desktop screens or specific areas of the screens of call agents. Recording can be customized according the prompts selected, such as the start of a call, an email, or other triggers. Screen recording cannot be detected by the employees being monitored.

Interactive voice response (IVR)

Interactive voice response (IVR) technology automates a company's interactions with callers. IVR is used in many types of business calls--sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls--and it can reduce costs in each of these areas. IVR can be used with both inbound and outbound calls and new versions record the caller ID, time of the call and the duration of the call.

Third party remote call monitoring

Many businesses find that they don't have time to listen to the calls they record. A third party remote call monitoring company can analyze the calls on behalf of the company, allowing it to take advantage of the knowledge gained through monitoring. A third party company can also record calls for clients from a remote location.

CallMatch

In real time, CallMatch sends a caller's Automatic Number Identification (ANI) to a proprietary database that returns their name, address, telephone number, gender, date of birth and credit score predictor to the agent. This information can automatically populate the fields on the agent's screen, enabling the agent to appropriately and efficiently route or handle the call.

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