Consider the last time you took out vehicle insurance or a medical aid policy. Chances are, you did so over the phone or online, rather than sitting down with a broker over tea as, perhaps, your grandparents did. We live in an age where more and more business is conducted over the phone and via other interaction channels, such as social media and email. Face to face interactions are decreasing steadily while multimedia interactions and paperless contracting is becoming the norm.
Cedric Boltman, executive: channel at Jasco Enterprise, believes it has become critical for businesses to ensure they have a solid interaction recording system in place. Traditionally, businesses would implement their interaction recording system at their premises, involving a hefty investment of both money and skills. Today, the advent of cloud gives businesses the luxury of choice when it comes to how they would like their interaction recording solutions delivered.
Interaction recording systems are essential for any business that communicates with their customers, suppliers and internally, to minimise and manage risk as well as remain compliant with legislation. For any paperless contract or financial transaction, the law dictates that specific processes need to be followed and information provided. Interaction recording provides a management tool for companies to ensure that their contact centres comply.
Additionally, companies can use interaction recording to mitigate risk, both externally and internally. By actively reviewing their recordings, they can ensure that they conduct their business with customers and potential customers in line with company policy across all departments, and they can manage the relationships between departments as well.
Add to this the benefit of having access to recordings in the event of a legal dispute and it’s abundantly clear that no business should be without an interaction recording system. But there are many complexities and barriers to investing in an on-premise system that has often given organisations pause when considering it.
Interaction recording systems are often tricky to implement, especially given the complex nature of contact centres. The demand for multiple means of interaction mean that business is conducted over more than just telephony systems and email.
Interactions take place over social media platforms too, and their constant changing nature make keeping up with technology difficult, adding to the complexity. On top of this, many companies use multiple platforms such as analogue telephony, Internet Protocol (IP) and digital platforms to communicate, making for a very complicated contact centre environment, thus adding to the difficulty of adding on an interaction recording system, and ensuring it is efficiently managed, maintained and kept up to date.
Looking at alternative solutions may be the answer. Technologies such as cloud and products such as managed services mean that businesses have the option of passing the responsibility of implementing, managing and maintaining their interaction recording solution to a Service Provider or Systems Integrator, while still reaping the benefits of having a system in place. Investing in a cloud based interaction recording system gives businesses the agility to have a system in place that caters for their current contact centre systems and which can be changed as their requirements and systems do.
Cloud based interaction recording systems also do not require large capital outlay in the purchasing of owned infrastructure and building of in-house skills. They offer the benefit of month-to-month billing, often on a pay-per-use basis, and they provide professional services to ensure maximum benefits are reaped. Cloud service providers possess the skills to analyse your contact centre environment and give you a modular – and centralised – interaction recording system that will best work for that environment, and ensure a smooth integration with that environment.
Of course, cloud is reliant on having a decent connectivity solution, so a business that cannot access adequate broadband services is still better served by an on-premise system. Added to this is the fact that cloud based interaction recording systems – or even on-premise systems – don’t stand on their own. They work on the back of your contact centre systems and IT infrastructure. Liaising with the right systems integrator can ensure that you select the interaction recording system that works best for your business, eliminating the risk of investing in a system that is unsupported by both your existing technology and your infrastructure.
