Considering Call Recorder Software?

For the past 15 years, APCO has been carefully crafting a list of operational standards in order to ensure the best possible quality in public safety emergency communications. Now, in collaboration with NENA and associated industry bodies, this lengthy endeavor has culminated in the development of Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) standards, along with soon-to-be introduced Quality Assurance (QA) standards. These new requirements are raising the bar for the quality of service required from the nation’s public safety agencies.

Quality of service is impacted by both the performance of employees and the processes in use.  Periodic, systematic quality evaluation of emergency contact center communications can provide invaluable transparency to everyone involved and expose inadequacies in both employee and process areas. This is especially critical in the current transitional period when old, inadequate communication systems are being replaced with new generation technologies. When correctly planned and executed, objective, software-driven quality evaluation can deliver valuable insights into the best course of corrective actions to support the new demands.

In response to the introduction of the new NG9-1-1 and QA standards and the difficulties faced by cash-strapped organizations in attempting to comply with them, VPI is launching its ‘Upgrade to Quality’ program for public safety and security organizations.  The program, valid from now through December 31st, 2010, stretches the tight budgets of public safety and security organizations by enabling them to affordably upgrade their legacy recording systems with VPI’s state-of-the-art VPI CAPTURE™ recording solution and provides double the value by including free VPI QUALITY™ call taker quality assurance software. VPI CAPTURE is an affordable, NG9-1-1 ready recording system that installs quickly to reliably and securely capture, manage and share critical incident information and to provide insights to optimize workforce efficiency.

For more information, conditions and restrictions on VPI’s ‘Upgrade to Quality’ program, visit http://www.VPI-corp.com/Quality or contact us at 1-800-200-5430.
 

Are you monitoring and measuring the metrics that really matter to you and your organization?

Now more than ever, contact center managers and executives need to be proactive in helping their organizations accomplish contact center optimization and tactical goals, but with so much data available gathered from ACDs, IVRs, telephone recorder software and call monitoring quality assurance tools, there's a tendency to rely upon the tried and true metrics that everyone tracks - perhaps more out of habit than as a result of the their actual value. Successful contact center managers know and understand the metrics that matter and utilize proactive communications recording technologies that enable them to actively identify and optimize rather than wait and react.
 

Download your complimentary white paper authored by one of the industry's premier research firms The Pelorus Group to learn how to develop and track "Metrics that Matter."

Current economic challenges are forcing organizations to rethink their approach to customer service and how they balance efficiency and effectiveness objectives. With regard to call center optimization, complexities have vastly increased with the growing number of communication channels and higher expectations from customers. The implementation of workforce optimization software technologies has become crucial in today's environment, ultimately resulting in increased profitability and improved strategic position in the marketplace.

Download your complimentary white paper authored by prestigious industry analyst and research firm Datamonitor, to learn:

• Key challenges faced by contact centers today

• How contact centers are responding and adapting to current economic challenges

• How using workforce optimization software technologies can help you maintain the proper balance between efficiency and effectiveness

• The capabilities and advantages of workforce optimization software technologies, including voice call recording, quality assurance call monitoring, workforce management, call center performance management, desktop contact center analytics and call center coaching solutions

Want to Learn More about the Call Center Recording Software, Quality Assurance Call Monitoring and Call Center Workforce Optimization Software Market, Key Trends and Products?

VPI is pleased to be able to offer you this exclusive opportunity to get your copy of the executive summary of DMG Consulting's comprehensive annual Call Center Quality Assurance/Telephone Call Recording Product and Market Report. Offering 35 pages packed with valuable information, this guide is essential to navigating in the complex market of contact center workforce optimization software technologies.

Use the promo code LINKEDIN to download your complimentary report summary authored by renowned industry analyst and research firm DMG Consulting, to learn:

• Which call center optimization technologies help call center managers achieve contact center optimization 

• Key technology trends that are altering the direction of contact centers

• How to take your call logging software program to the next level and increase productivity while enhancing the customer experience and agent satisfaction

• The direction workforce optimization software technologies are heading and how to best leverage them, including Telephone Voice Recording, Call Center Quality Assurance, Call Center Performance Management, eLearning, Call Center Coaching, Surveying, Contact Center Analytics and Workforce Management (WFM)

• Comparison of workforce optimization software suites vs. stand-alone solutions

• How industry regulations are impacting voice call recording 

• The new strategic role of contact center managers

• Return on investment (ROI) analysis and workforce optimization software 

• What to expect in the future and more!

Traditional contact center quality monitoring involves random capture of call recordings – either based on predetermined selection criteria or schedules.   We agree that it is impossible for human beings to inspect every single call; but there are two dynamics we have to consider – separating the capture method from the call selection method.  

Latest-generation call recording software allows for recording all calls first, and then a powerful rules engine is used to decide which calls to keep or inspect.   It may sound like a small nuance, but actually this type of call center recording software design approach opens the solution to become far more effective to inspect call center effectiveness.   Rather than make selections of calls for call center quality assurance based on when somebody is scheduled to be in their seat, or assuming that we are taking an X% sample of total call volume when we are not yet aware of how many calls the agent takes, or hoping that we get a sample of calls that are prime examples of effectiveness in handling high value transactions – we suggest a different approach – an approach we term precision quality monitoring.    It involves a call recoridng software designed for the capture of all calls, then determination of what to inspect based on a variety of outcomes. Outcome-based information is used to determine which calls need to be stored, which calls need to be secured in a more robust manner (i.e. for PCI and HIPAA compliance, etc.), which calls answer interesting questions about the performance of a new process, and which calls can simply be discarded.

The outcomes used to make these critical decisions are either attributes of the calls themselves, attributes of the agents fielding the calls, or simply true random samples based on any number of criteria.   When the call recording software is enhanced with desktop screen analytics, not only can the calls be tagged with extended information in a unique way, but they can also be analyzed based on the associated information and provide a roadmap for your management team to identify trends – both positive and negative - that affect performance.    This approach is revolutionary, because it breaks down barriers that have long been separating related functions.   In the old days (a couple of years ago), you would have an approach for running reports and analyzing data that flows through your call center, then you would go to another call center quality assurance system for inspecting agent performance and perhaps hunt for examples of the performance trends.   Unfortunately, using a random method based on limited agent based information meant that it was often difficult to find enough examples of the call types involved in the trend to make a legitimate operational adjustment based on the sample.  

Latest call recording software and integrated performance optimization technologies change that dynamic. The process of identifying and addressing business issues is completely unified. Now you can identify trends in interactions, both positive and negative, and then the recorded interactions become an element of the data you are reviewing.   Importantly, these latest-generation call center optimization technologies are incredibly easy to use and take the selection guesswork out of the equation. They truly automate the end-to-end quality review process, beginning with identifying the appropriate calls to inspect, serving those calls to the right person to perform the inspection in a simple “to do” list, and address the issues uncovered through a variety of action steps. 

To find out more about uncovering performance issues via intelligent recording and quality management, visit: http://www.vpi-corp.com/Call-Center-Quality-Assurance-Management-Software.asp

Ready to upgrade your contact center? Looking to implement new TDM and VoIP Call recording, call center quality assurance, call center performance management, or call center coaching solutions or replace some of your existing applications?

If so, it's now time to zero-in on the most appropriate call center optimization technology and ask management for the money. This must-read resource guide is crucial for any contact center professional looking to take their organization to the next level.

Use the promo code LINKEDIN to download your complimentary resource guide at http://www.VPI-corp.com/ROI-Guide authored by prestigious industry analyst Dick Bucci from The PELORUS Group, to learn about the key components for developing a compelling and convincing business case for your successfully obtaining your contact center investment funds, including:

• The importance of building both business and ROI cases
• How to prepare your funding request
• The many financial benefits of call logging software, call center quality assurance, call center performance management, contact center analytics, call center coaching solutions
• How to prepare your ROI analysis, and much more!

Phone call recording software plays a key role in many industries. It is a mandatory requirement in the majority of public safety organizations and within various industries, such as financial services and healthcare. With so much valuable information in vast number of customer interactions, the overwhelming majority of many organizations are now using call logging software. Telephone voice recording software helps many organizations optimize the customer experience, improve agent call quality, and minimize risk by providing receipts of oral commitments for dispute resolution, preventing privacy leaks and highlighting questionable employee conduct.

Analytics-Enhanced Call Recorder Software Solutions

Full-time voice call recording software with rules-based records retention, combined with the use of integrated desktop screen analytics, is in high demand by organizations to comply with increasingly complex privacy compliance regulations, including PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard). These new, analytics-enhanced telephone voice recording software technologies are helping organizations of all sizes identify sensitive information that should be protected from access or replay by unauthorized users, such as consumers’ credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, references, family members, etc. Analytics-enhanced call logging software technologies are also helping with the identification of certain types of interactions that matter most with regard to business goals and economic circumstances.

The Benefits of Desktop Screen and Telephone Call Recording

Many organizations are now adopting high-volume desktop screen recording software. Using phone recording software to review screens in conjunction with the corresponding call audio can expose and improve application navigation and workflow processes to reduce call and post-call handling time. Screen recording software is also a very valuable tool for evaluating the quality and efficiency of Web chat interactions. Voice and Data call recording equipment enables managers to see how front-line employees are handling multiple chat sessions simultaneously on one or multiple desktop monitors. Voice logging software is also being used to optimize the use of email and Web chat. Training managers are using the multimedia screen and voice recordings as best practice training clips, and to monitor the quality of email responses and Web chat sessions.

A Secure Digital Call Recording Software Solution

Full-time voice call recording software is essential for helping organizations manage compliance and liability issues. However, it’s imperative to implement a system that will guard data from unauthorized access with granular user and data security rules and end-to-end AES 256 encryption with key management. A comprehensive audit trail log should record all user activity within the system so that organizations can conduct full trace audits to determine who accessed any recording in the system and when – for playback, export, or any other critical events.

To learn more about the latest advancements in phone call recording software, visit: http://www.VPI-corp.com/Phone-Call-recording-Software.asp

Dispatch quality assurance call monitoring software is more important today than ever before. Recognized as an essential component in the quest for improved performance, efficiency and productivity, public safety organizations are now placing an increased emphasis on the capabilities and deployment of dispatch quality assurance call monitoring software. In the midst of today’s consolidation and changes, many public safety and security organizations are being asked to do more with less resources. Therefore, it is even more important than ever before to maximize the productivity and effectiveness of current employees and resources. There is tremendous value in assessing recorded interactions with dispatch quality assurance voice logging software. As public safety organizations roll out new programs, new communications recording and dispatching technologies, and Next Generation 9-1-1 initiatives, a quality assurance program using automated dispatch quality assurance tool integrated with your call recording software can be invaluable for monitoring the adoption and success of your initiatives.

Benefits of Dispatch Quality Assurance Software

Integrated dispatch quality assurance call recording software can be extremely valuable in improving the efficiency and accuracy of emergency communications. Quality assurance helps improve productivity and reduce staff turnover. With new Web-based dispatch quality assurance software tools that automatically assign the appropriate customized evaluation form, public safety and security organizations can objectively evaluate individual call taker quality or performance of multiple call takers during entire incidents, regardless of how many locations, units and jurisdictions involved. In addition to enabling thorough evaluation of call taker performance with regard to fast, efficient, accurate and high quality call handling, dispatch quality assurance software helps public safety and security organizations ensure that call taker and dispatcher processes are working properly and within compliance.

Advantages of Console Screen Analytics

Today’s advanced multimedia phone call logger and dispatch quality assurance call monitoring software solutions use screen analytics to easily capture important fields, values and data from desktop monitors and console screens. This can be achieved without requiring organizations to perform expensive back-end integrations to the applications running on employee desktops. By being able to tag data like “Incident Type” from the CAD system to recorded calls, organizations now have the ability to evaluate calls by incident type. For example, an organization may determine a need or desire to listen to all or a high percentage of calls recorded by their voice logger related to a certain incident type such as robberies, domestic violence, medical-related calls or homicide.

Additional Advantages of Automated Coaching

Public safety organizations are using the assessment scores from their dispatch quality assurance call monitoring software to improve their training programs and automatically assigning targeted, supplemental coaching to those call takers that need improvement in certain areas identified by quality assurance evaluations. With an integrated, automated coaching solution, public safety and security organizations can quickly and automatically deliver feedback and training content that addresses the needs of each call taker, dispatcher and supervisor. Advanced coaching solutions enable authorized users to access training content and reports on results of training via customized Web dashboards or desktop tickers.

To learn more about best practices for using and the latest advancements in dispatch quality assurance call monitoring software, visit http://www.VPI-corp.com/911-Quality-Assurance-Management-Software.asp

Can your current voice logging system handle NG9-1-1 communications? How effective is your dispatcher quality assurance call monitoring program?

Public safety emergency communications have never been on the threshold of greater change than they are today. PSAPs, both large and small, are now preparing for Next Generation 9-1-1 to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of mobile, multimedia and IP communications. This ground-breaking resource guide discusses what you need to look for in a new call logger and quality assurance system to meet the challenges arising from Next Generation 9-1-1.

Use the promo code VPIBLOG to download your complimentary resource guide, authored by analyst Dick Bucci from The PELORUS GROUP and sponsored by VPI, to learn:

• The goals and benefits of NG9-1-1 and how to ensure a smooth transition.

• The implications for public safety voice logging recorders - learn why the majority of voice call recording systems installed today cannot be cost-effectively scaled or modified to support NG9-1-1.

• What to look for in new call recorder software to effectively meet NG9-1-1 requirements for IP communications support, open architecture, flexibility and scalability.

• How a well-designed quality assurance program can help you monitor and improve the effectiveness of your NG9-1-1 program roll-out initiatives.

Get your complimentary copy of the resource guide "Next Generation 9-1-1 Communications Recording and Quality Assurance" today.

Telephone voice recording solutions are essential for recording agent-customer interactions and associated telephony and screen data. However, in this new age of cyber crime and identity theft, the inevitable emergence of strict regulations to help protect sensitive customer data has resulted in many organizations being forced to scramble to update or replace their existing phone audio recorder solutions in order to adhere to the latest legislative guidelines.
 

The PCI-DSS, a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, was developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. International, to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis. Announced in January 2010, PCI-DSS requirement 3.2 states that organizations must not store sensitive authentication data subsequent to authorization – even if encrypted. Sensitive authentication data consists of magnetic stripe (or track) data, card validation code or value, and PIN data. This data is deemed particularly sensitive as it can be used by to generate fake payment cards and create fraudulent transactions. 

The PCI-DSS regulations are requiring organizations that handle credit card transactions over the phone to delete all archived recordings that contain sensitive authentication data. In order to comply with these new regulations, many organizations are having to delete all of these verbal receipts because the process of listening to the contents of potentially hundreds of thousands of call recordings would be cost prohibitive and labor intensive. Unfortunately, the many calls that do not contain sensitive data will also be deleted – calls that should be retained for quality assurance (QA) purposes and liability management.

VPI’s rules-driven call logging software solution enables organizations to maintain PCI compliance by identifying the calls that cannot be accessed and archived due to data sensitivity issues as well as those that can be safely archived for use in QA and liability management. The VPI CAPTURE PRO call recording software solution leverages unique desktop screen analytics that can detect events and data directly from application screens – such as an employee entering sensitive credit card authentication data into a field on screen – and tags them to the recorded interactions. This enables automated classification for deletion of all audio and video recording files containing sensitive authentication data and helps ensure compliance with the latest PCI-DSS regulations. And as an added bonus, VPI's phone audio recorder makes valuable non-sensitive data related to the interaction – such as call date/time, call direction, Customer ID, Agent ID, sales or collections amount, number of transfers, and hold time – is still kept and made available in interactive reports for analysis into key business issues and opportunities. For more information on VPI’s compliance call logging software solution, visit: http://www.VPI-corp.com/PCI

In addition to offering highly advanced screen analytics capabilities, VPI's phone call logger provides built-in end-to-end data encryption and key management, file watermarking, and detailed audit log reporting. Cost-effective and very affordable, VPI solutions enable organizations to gain a lasting advantage – with open standards and service oriented architecture, the VPI telephone voice recording solution has the flexibility to grow and evolve in order to adapt to your changing environment. VPI customers benefit from unsurpassed versatility and ROI as the unified platform supports virtually any PBX – digital or analog, TDM or VoIP, individually or blended – with a unified interface and industry standard file formats.

Call center reporting software has, for some time, been evolving from the very basic, disparate technologies of the 90s to the tightly integrated, multi-dimensional software suites of today. Once upon a time, the standard call center performance management system implemented in organizations worldwide consisted of a telephone system, a call logger, an ACD and a CRM solution. Times have changed with the emergence of powerful new performance contact center analytics solutions designed to rapidly boost contact center performance and operational effectiveness – enabling organizations to discover, diagnose and manage issues before they have a chance to adversely impact customer satisfaction.

In order to survive, compete, and truly maximize the productivity and profitability of an organization, managers need much more information than the call center performance management systems of the past could provide. There’s only so much that anyone can do with dozens of disparate reports and spreadsheets of data relating to nothing in particular. Even though customer-agent interactions and the associated telephony data represent a veritable goldmine of business intelligence, the old call center performance management software systems had no way to enable users to access, analyze, and act upon the intelligence. VPI developed VPI PERFORMANCE to empower contact center agents, managers, and executives with actionable, targeted information to drive real-time, multi-level performance improvements through innovative call center reporting and contact center analytics tools. The VPI PERFORMANCE call center performance management software collects and consolidates real-time and historical performance information from multiple telephony and business systems, delivering critical key performance indicators (KPIs) in a timely and relevant manner for each user. With a powerful combination of real-time consolidated call center reporting, root cause performance contact center analytics, and targeted call center coaching and messaging, VPI PERFORMANCE enables contact centers to drive continuous, proactive improvement – crucial for cost containment, contact center optimization profitability.

VPI PERFORMANCE Web-based reports allow managers to conveniently access, analyze and drill through data to quickly identify the root cause of problems or successes - even down to the recorded interaction from the integrated VPI contact center recording system - and immediately change business direction based on actual customer responses and employee performance. As soon as the problem or success is determined, VPI PERFORMANCE call center performance management software ensures the delivery of the right information to the right person at the right time with employee desktop dashboards, tickers and scorecards. Managers and supervisors are equipped to manage the here and now – to take immediate actions to solve immediate problems, rather than trying to handle yesterday’s problems next month, or worse, never managing them at all. Managing based on old information is likely to result in once happy, high-value customers taking their business elsewhere.

Unlike the old call center reporting solutions, VPI PERFORMANCE enables managers to expedite performance improvements through automated, targeted intervention. They can easily automate the feedback and call center coaching process and empower front-line employees and supervisors to be highly effective. The solution helps to maximize time and cost efficiency – electronic call center coaching and learning fits smoothly within existing workflow, is a powerful supplement to face-to-face training, increases retention rates for new information and expedites ramp-up. With timely access to actionable information, managers can rapidly improve sales conversion, collections and quality of service while realizing significant savings in areas such as: agent attrition, quality scores, first call resolution, average talk time, idle time, sickness and absence, average hold time, and much more. With VPI PERFORMANCE, the entire organization will quickly begin to benefit from increased productivity, customer loyalty, and revenue.

Call logging software comes in all shapes and sizes. Selecting the best call recording equipment for your organization’s specific needs can be tricky. Do you need to record for compliance and liability purposes? Or, are you more focused on your quality management goals? What kind of telephone voice recording does your organization currently utilize – traditional voice logging, digital call recording, VoIP call recording, or a combination? Is your organization growing or downsizing? Do you record multiple locations, and if so, is it easy to administer the communications recording system in order to access and analyze any and all recordings, by site, by group, and even down to individual calls? How many technologies do you currently have in place? Would the new call monitoring system have to integrate with any of them? There are indeed many questions to answer and issues to address in the quest for a new quality assurance call monitoring system. VPI has been listening to these questions from its customers for over 15 years, and has designed flexible solutions that can adapt to, and work within, virtually any environment – meeting the needs and expectations of organizations of all types and sizes.

For organizations seeking compliance and liability voice logging, such as public safety agencies, security companies, government bodies, and financial institutions, VPI developed VPI CAPTURE PRO. As the industry’s most secure and feature-rich audio and data phone recording software, VPI CAPTURE PRO enables organizations to seamlessly capture, assess, assemble, and share their recorded communications from a combination of telephone, radio, email and Web chat systems – traditional digital call recording and IP call recording software. In addition to handling compliance and risk management, VPI CAPTURE PRO enables federal, state, local, and private organizations to improve the quality of their mission-critical voice and data interactions and deliver first-rate customer service by acknowledging and utilizing call center quality assurance.

If you’re looking for a call logging software solution that will help you achieve your call center quality assurance goals, VPI CAPTURE PRO is by far your best bet. Whether or not you use a formalized quality evaluation process, VPI CAPTURE PRO allows you to engage in quality assurance call monitoring which will improve the customer service quality delivered by your local or locate and playback high value call recordings directly from a variety of standard reports, and leverage best practice remote employees, focusing on the most pressing business issues. You can monitor live calls across multiple locations, conveniently calls for training – call recordings are highly portable in standard formats and small file sizes.

With the VPI CAPTURE PRO voice call recording solution you can rest assured that whatever your needs may be, and whatever kind of technology and telephone voice recording you may have – both now and in the future – all of your immediate needs will be met, and you will be fully equipped to rise to every challenge that lies ahead. VPI’s open standards call recording equipment and technology welcomes change and meets the associated challenges with many options for fast and cost-effective reconfigurations in order to satisfy changes in legislation, increased capacity, new geographic distribution of your employee teams, or changes between centralized and distributed operation.
 

Voice logging systems were once very basic solutions built to record all or a sample of calls along with some rudimentary telephony data. Generally deployed for compliance and liability purposes, digital call recording systems were viewed as a backroom necessity that occasionally served a purpose whenever a customer dispute occurred. Over the past decade, the role of the call recorder has changed a great deal. The value of recorded interactions and their importance for effective quality assurance call monitoring has become a major focal point in the development of the highly advanced call logger systems available today.

Today’s flexible, elegant communications recording solutions are light years away from the clunky, hardware-based beasts of the past. Gone are the proprietary parts and expensive customizations – today’s advanced digital and VoIP recording software solutions are software based, leveraging open architecture for easy integrations and cost-effective customization. VPI’s robust digital and IP recording software solutions can be customized, scaled and adapted to meet the evolving demands of organizations of all kinds – from small- and medium-sized contact centers to global enterprises employing any combination of in-house and remote employees. VPI CAPTURE PRO is the most progressive, ground-breaking voice call recording and screen data call recording software available today. Highly reliable, easily implemented and remarkably effective in virtually any environment, VPI CAPTURE PRO can record multimedia interactions from a wide range of network configurations, TDM and VoIP telephony environments, and across any number of locations. Powered by VPI Fact Finder™, VPI's powerful desktop screen contact center analytics engine, the call logger tags important employee screen events and facts to call recordings for automated call classification and analysis centered on key business issues.

In recent years, it has become generally recognized that recordings of customer interactions contain a vast amount of intelligence about an organization’s processes, customer satisfaction, front-line employee performance, revenue opportunities, and chances for improvement of strategic position in the marketplace. Recorded interactions between agents and customers are a veritable gold mine of business intelligence, yielding insights into agent performance, product or service perception, and customer satisfaction. Intelligence garnered from customer interactions can be used to improve managerial decisions and investments made by strategic-level departments such as sales, marketing, human resources, research and development, finance, or operations.

VPI EMPOWER offers a rich, business-centric set of tools that make a significant impact on an organization’s bottom line – mitigating risk, enhancing call center quality assurance, streamlining call center reporting, improving call center coaching, and optimizing call center performance management. VPI EMPOWER combines and enhances the benefits of VPI CAPTURE PRO, VPI QUALITY PRO and VPI PERFORMANCE. Individually, each software solution is robust and powerful, but they are exponentially more valuable when integrated.

VPI, the premier global provider of contact center recording and analytics, quality assurance call monitoring and workforce optimization software solutions for enterprises, trading floors, government agencies, and emergency service providers, announced today that VPI EMPOWER has received a 2009 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, the leading publication covering CRM, call centers and teleservices since 1982.

"I am pleased to honor VPI for its hard work and success. VPI has displayed true innovation and excellence in the development of its VPI EMPOWER suite of analytics-enhanced contact center recording, call center quality assurance and workforce optimization solutions, and is dedicated to improving the contact center experience as well as the ROI for companies that use them," said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC.

VPI EMPOWER is a powerful, modular suite of Web-based contact center recording software and contact center optimization solutions, comprised of applications for multimedia communications recording and contact center analytics, quality evaluation, electronic learning and call center coaching, and real-time call center performance management. VPI EMPOWER marks a radical departure from the conventional solutions currently available to contact centers. Built upon the foundation of VPI’s long-established, proven technologies, VPI EMPOWER leverages VPI Fact Finder™, a ground-breaking desktop screen analytics technology that automatically detects events and data directly from application screens being used by employees and tags them to appropriate points within recorded interactions. This enables automated classification and more meaningful, targeted quality assurance call monitoring focused on key business issues, such as customer churn, first contact resolution, missed up-sell opportunities, product issues, long hold and handle times, multiple transfers or escalations, and much more. VPI EMPOWER contact center workforce optimization software delivers a significant advantage in just weeks, with an easy-to-use product that requires minimal training.

"We are deeply gratified that VPI EMPOWER has been honored as Product of the Year for Exceptional Innovation by TMC’s Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine," said Patrick Botz, vice president of solutions marketing at VPI. "This prestigious award is a testament to VPI’s commitment to providing innovative, world-class digital and VoIP call recording, call center quality assurance, call center reporting and call center coaching solutions that enable organizations to rapidly and affordably maximize the potential and profitability of their customer contact center operations.
 

Do you record or plan to record your calls and/or desktop screen activity? Do your employees discuss sensitive information over the phone? If so, there are serious telephone call recording laws and phone call recording regulations that you need to be aware of. To avoid costly violations and ensure customer credibility, you need to become familiar with the new and evolving digital call recording laws, voice call recording regulations, and industry standards that most profoundly impact organizations today. You should make a point of learning what you can do to avoid violating these call recording laws, and where to go when you need help. The information in this article on telephone call recording laws and regulations is not intended as legal advice. Always check with your legal counsel to learn more about how voice logging regulations can affect you and your organization. Let’s discuss some of the most common telephone call recording laws and phone call recording regulations impacting organizations today.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS)

Established by American Express, Discovery Financial Services, MasterCard Worldwide, Visa International and JCB, PCI-DSS regulations are intended for organizations that accept credit cards and record those interactions with call recording equipment. The regulations forbid the insecure storage of unencrypted credit card numbers, PIN numbers, and other personal information in databases and digital call recording software systems. Digital call recording software systems should be able to identify, encrypt and restrict access to sensitive customer information from unauthorized users. According to the PELORUS Group, a leading independent market research and consultancy company in the financial services and telecommunications industries:

1.     Contact centers can easily become unsuspecting violators (of PCI-DSS compliance regulations) because of the practice of recording private customer information in data and voice call recording software systems.

2.     Unless agents are specifically authorized to see this information, their unrestricted access is a violation of PCI-DSS.

3.     You can avoid potential violations by investing in telephone recorder software that blocks or encrypts recordings that contain card numbers.

Health Insurance Portability and Protection Act (HIPPA)

The HIPAA Privacy Rule protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. With regard to call recording laws and call recording regulations, it’s imperative that organizations have the ability to identify, restrict access to and encrypt specific interactions containing sensitive information from unauthorized users.

Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA)

Designed to eliminate abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices, the FDCPA mandates that collectors must identify themselves, including the name of their firm, and explain that the purpose of the call is to collect a debt. With regard to telephone call recording laws and regulations, all interactions must be day and time stamped, and all calls recorded in order to assess employee compliance.

Telemarketing Sales Rule

The Telemarketing Sales Rule prohibits sellers and telemarketers from making false or misleading statements. The Federal Communications Commission may assess a fine of up to $11,000 per violation. Seven pieces of information must be provided by the employee during the call - such as identity of the seller, the nature of the goods or services offered for sale, the full cost of all offers, etc.

Learn more about call recording laws and call recording regulations and how to avoid costly fines and legal fees with latest in analytics-driven phone call recording software – download your complimentary copy of the white paper “Call Recording Laws, Regulations and Best Practices for Ensuring Compliance,“ authored by renowned analyst Dick Bucci from The PELORUS Group at http://www.VPI-corp.com/Call-Recording-Laws

VoIP call recording software has finally come of age, offering the same advanced level of functionality and reliability as traditional recording systems. Organizations across the globe have recognized the tremendous benefits of VoIP communications and IP call recording software. New IP Communications platforms allow organizations to flatten, consolidate and extend their communications architecture. VoIP communications are also enabling a trend toward smaller, distributed contact centers.

The Significant Benefits of VoIP Communications
Reduced operational costs are often one of the major drivers for investing in VoIP communications and VoIP call recording software. In a recent survey conducted by IDC – a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets – 63.4 percent of business respondents reported the need to cut costs as the primary reason for upgrading to a VoIP service. Overall, IDC estimates that a VoIP system can reduce telephony-related expenses by 30 percent. In a traditional TDM environment, moving and adding telephone lines can be expensive. For example, the average employee moves desks once per year and the cost to move a traditional phone is $75.14 per change, and changes can take days to complete. Whereas, in a VoIP telephony world, moves, adds and changes can often be performed via a single Web-based software interface.

Enhanced disaster recovery is also a significant benefit to VoIP communications and new VoIP recording software systems. Prior to the advent of VoIP communications and IP recording software, the ability to re-route communications during a natural disaster had been achieved via the services of multinational corporations with the budget to build alternative circuits to reroute their traffic. However, the flexibility built into IP-based voice communications has given small businesses access to the same disaster response capabilities as large corporations.

Today’s more advanced IP recording software systems also have tremendous benefits versus traditional recording systems. If planned and implemented properly, centralized voice call recording can remove the need to implement recording capabilities at remote sites and provides for more efficient use of IP call recording resources.

VoIP Call Recording Software - What You Need to Know
There are several things to consider when implementing a new VoIP call recording software system. Voice call recording systems should use open standards and protocols and be able to adapt to evolving needs in order to interoperate with future technologies without replacement. Proprietary, hardware-based call recording systems are becoming a thing of the past.

Organizations are embracing the many benefits and capabilities offered by new VoIP communications platforms. However, all too often, the ability of their VoIP call recording software system to fully leverage those capabilities is somewhat lacking. Some voice call recording software systems can only record audio in very specific environments and have great difficulty capturing all of the important call information or metadata necessary to easily search for and find important calls. Some IP call recording software systems simply hit a wall and cannot record IP telephone, radio and multimedia communications in certain environments. It’s crucial to implement an advanced VoIP recording software system that can adapt and evolve as needs and technologies change, as well as extensive functionality to fully maximize the capabilities of the latest VoIP platforms.

To learn more about the latest developments and advancements in VoIP call recording software, visit http://www.vpi-corp.com/Call-Recorder.asp

Call center quality assurance software is now a fundamental technology in virtually every competitive call center environment. As the economy begins to recover, 2010 is expected to be another tough year for enterprises, with contact center managers asked once again to reduce their operating expenses while improving the customer experience and satisfaction scores. They will be expected to achieve this goal with limited resources and without incurring any additional costs. This is why the use of an automated call monitoring system has become so crucial for organizations of all types and sizes. To deliver on these key enterprise goals, contact center managers need to improve agent productivity without making major technology investments. The call center quality assurance software solutions that most contact centers already have can play an important role in helping managers meet their corporate objectives.

Screen Analytics – An Inexpensive and Invaluable Adjunct to the Quality Assurance Call Monitoring Process

Call center quality assurance software solutions improve call quality and productivity by identifying the impediments that prevent agents from delivering an outstanding customer experience. The issues may be training-related, operational, procedural or systems-oriented, but most, if not all, can be resolved once they are identified. However, since traditional quality assurance is based on a random sampling of a small percentage of calls received by the department, important trends and improvement opportunities are often missed. In the past, contact center managers had little to no visibility into the performance of their desktop servicing solutions. They could see how each agent used their systems to address each call, but could not identify trends for the entire department, which is now possible with screen analytics.

Screen analytics software is a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-implement solution that can dramatically improve the effectiveness of the call center quality assurance process by helping identify the calls or back-office transactions that will most benefit from management attention. Screen analytics extends the benefits of the mission-critical quality assurance call monitoring process while providing timely insights that can be of use to the entire organization. Enterprise and contact center managers who want to rapidly and cost effectively identify insights into customer needs and agent performance issues should seriously consider screen analytics.

Benefits of Desktop Screen Analytics

With regard to call center quality assurance and workforce optimization, desktop screen contact center analytics solutions offer many significant benefits. The solution empowers managers to intervene in a timely manner – altering outcomes and changing contact centers from reactive organizations to proactive, engaged advocates. Screen analytics can help improve the customer experience, increase First Call Resolution, and reduce transfers, holds and call backs. In addition to boosting the effectiveness of call center quality assurance processes, screen analytics can improve agent productivity, decrease the cost of service, identify call center coaching needs, and improve agent satisfaction. Furthermore, desktop screen contact center analytics can play a major role in increasing revenue and profitability, reducing risk by rapidly identifying inappropriate agent behaviors and performance, highlighting broken business processes, identifying “at-risk” customers while there is still an opportunity to retain them, and improving the customer experience.

Authored by leading industry analyst Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting, “Accelerating Call Center Quality Assurance and Performance Optimization with Screen Analytics” is a must-read whitepaper that offers valuable insights and advice that can help your organization survive and thrive in the year ahead. To learn more about the value of workforce optimization software enhanced by screen analytics, download your complimentary copy of the white paper at http://www.VPI-corp.com/Screen-Analytics.  

To learn more about VPI’s screen analytics-enhanced call monitoring system, visit: http://www.VPI-corp.com/Call-Center-Recording.asp