Whether you’re running a sales team, a support service, or a comprehensive contact centre, call recording can be an essential tool.
With every call archived and easily accessible, you’re armed with insight into how agents are performing, how disputes may have arisen, and how you can improve customer service.
But with a wealth of on-premise and cloud-based call recording solutions available, it can feel like a struggle to know what’s best for your business. Should you opt for hosted call centre services including call recording, or keep more of your critical systems in-house?
Let’s compare the alternatives head-to-head based on three essential criteria – resilience, security and scalability.
Resilience – is your call recording system always available?
You’ll need a call recording system you can depend on to record every call, from every agent, even if they work remotely. Meanwhile, you’ll need to be able to retrieve recordings whenever you need them.
With an in-house call recording system, you retain complete control over uptime. Your IT department will be responsible for maintaining service and taking the necessary steps to prevent unexpected downtime. This often involves larger capital expenditure to create backup systems in case your primary ones fail.
A cloud-based system lets somebody else handle availability, shape traffic, and store your recordings. In the case of Hostcomm, our infrastructure is highly redundant, so you can be sure that your service is always available, all of the time.
And, because it’s hosted in the cloud, it’s easy to retrieve call recordings from anywhere you can get online.
Security – is your call recording data safe?
While keeping your call recording system in-house comes with the huge responsibility of keeping it online, it also lets you retain complete control over your data. No recordings need to leave your internal infrastructure, mitigating the risk of data theft.
Of course, call recording in the cloud is designed to be secure by nature. At Hostcomm, we store recordings on dedicated servers with robust protection from an active firewall that filters access by IP. As a result, the only people that can access your server are the ones you nominate.
If you accept card payment over the phone, you’ll also have some obligations when it comes to PCI DSS – the strict standards set by the Payment Card Industry. In short, the most relevant standards dictate that no payment card data should be stored in call recordings.
With an automated cloud-based system, there are two options. First, you can take agents out of the payment process, instead forwarding customers to an automated PCI payment system which is not recorded. Alternatively, Hostcomm’s system can automatically recognise and remove sensitive card data from recordings without the need for manual input.
While in-house call recording makes it easier to see how secure your data is, the right hosted service keeps recordings protected and makes PCI DSS compliance easier than ever.
Scalability – what if things change?
The needs of your business are bound to change and it’s useful to choose a call recording solution that changes with you.
With an on-premise call recording system, your capital expenditure and implementation earns you the ability to grow within your capacity. Providing you have allowed enough storage and your infrastructure can cope with the demand, it will likely be some time before you need to upgrade the system you’ve put in place.
Of course, if you encounter quieter periods, you may find that you have paid to implement and maintain a system that is severely underused.
It’s scalability where cloud-based call recording has a unique advantage. There’s no capital expenditure, just a simple fee accrued on a per-agent basis.
For the unpredictability of business, that’s ideal. If demand increases, you can add more agents instantly – and, because it’s in the cloud, there’s theoretically no upper limit on your growth.
Meanwhile, if things go quiet, you’ll only pay for the seats you actually need.
What to look for when you select a call recording system
The reality is that on-premise and “in the cloud” call recording systems both come with their own benefits. There are reasons to use both, depending on the nature of your organisation, how you use your systems, and your budget.
But, above all else, consider resilience, security, and scalability. How they’re achieved will vary from business to business – but the importance of achieving them is the same for every single one of us.
