Why should you record calls

Call recording is a great business tool that can be used for countless benefits. Employee training and monitoring (Specially for remote workers) along with brand and policy assurance. 

Recorded calls can quickly resolve customer disputes, employee interactions, and can be used to protect your business in the event of a lawsuit.

Lafarge Canada
utilizes call recordings at their facilities to ensure billing accuracy. When a driver calls their control tower, they request the order size which is recorded on the record. They can reference this call to prove accurate billing, or correct an error.
It's a win-win-win for everyone. It protects the company, their customers, and employees alike.

3 Different Call Recording Methods

1. Account Level Recording

This will ensure that all calls are recorded. This includes inbound calls, outbound calls, and internal calls between your staff.

2. User Level Recording

You can specify specific users that you wish to enable call recording for. This will include their inbound calls, outbound calls, and any internal calls they have. Meaning other staff could possibly be included in recorded calls if they are a participant in that call.

3. Call Queue Level Recording

If your organization utilizes call queues. You can activate call recording for inbound calls that enter your call queue. This will mean any agent that answers call queue calls will be recorded for those calls only. It would not include outbound calls, or other callers who do not reach the agent by means of a call queue.  

How to activate call recording

Account Level & User Level Recording - If you wish to activate call recording on the account/user level - you must contact your Account Manager or support team. This is based on the sensitive nature of the request and our team will review various suggestions and insights into call recording.

Call Queue Recording - As an Office Manager or Call Centre Supervisor, you can activate call recording for specific call queues. There are legal requirements for call recording in Canada that we recommend you consider before activating call recording along with call recording best practices at the bottom of this article. 

Step 1. Log into your Manager Portal. https://portal.b1communications.ca 

Step 2. From the top navigation, select Call Queues

Step 3. Select Edit Queue for the specific queue you wish to activate call recording. 

Step 4.  The Call Queue details will pop-up. The second to last option will be "Record Calls."

Step 5. Select Save and you are done. 

Step 6. Repeat this step for each call queue you wish to record. 

Ring Groups cannot be recorded like call queues. Learn the difference between call queues and ring groups. 

Who can access recorded phone calls?

Users can access their own recorded phone calls and Office Managers can access all recorded calls in the company.

How to listen and download recorded phone calls

Once a phone call is recorded, it's stored in your portal's call history. It's not accessible on your desk phone, webphone or mobile app.  Call recordings become available shortly after a call ends. 

Step 1. Log into your User/Manager Portal. https://portal.b1communications.ca 

Step 2. From the top navigation, select Call History

Step 3. Optional - You can use 'Filters' to pinpoint a specific call/date/user.

Step 4: Optional - Once in the filter Pop-up, you can use the various options to filter specific calls based on the date, the user, department, site, type (inbound, outbound or missed) and of course the 'Caller Number' would be your customers number, and the 'Dialed Number' would be the number they used to reach you.

Step 5: On the left side of the call history, you'll see three icons beside each call. Block, Download, and Listen.

Step 5: If you wish to download the recorded call, select 'Download" and it will save as a wave formatted file. There currently is not a way to download recorded calls in bulk. However this is a feature that we are exploring. If you wish to setup an internal storage. We do offer custom software development projects to automatically transfer recorded calls into your database. Contact our team for details and a quote. 

You may see 'No Recording' beside a specific call. This happens if call recording is not active for that call, if the call is zero seconds and if the caller left a voicemail message.

Call Recording Best Practices

Beyond the legal requirements to record a call in Canada. We have a few best practices for recording calls in your organization. 

1. We recommend including an announcement to callers that their call is being recorded. This is the safest approach to keeping 'legal.' This can be accomplished with an Auto Attendant, or Call Queue Introduction. 

2. Tell your staff about the recording. There is nothing worse than playing a recorded call for an employee who was unaware recording was happening. It breaks trust and will do more damage than good. 

3. Utilize recorded calls as part of your company culture. Have each manager select a random call each week. Ensure the team is aware of the practice and give praise when possible, and constructive feedback when required. We would even suggest a bonus for 'perfect' phone calls. Create a list of requirements for each call and watch your team improve with ongoing praise and recognition.

4.  Use call recordings to verify data. I can't tell you how many times a customer provided me a telephone number or address and I didn't write it down quick enough... Instead of asking the customer to repeat themselves 2-3 times, I simply listen to the recorded call.

5. We recommend you record calls. It just makes sense to have it available if you need it, rather than realizing after a tense exchange with a customer that you should have recorded the call. 

Call Recording Storage

Included with your plan is 30 days of recorded call storage. If you require longer, we offer data storage plans that go to a maximum of 10 years of call recording storage. Contact our team for details and a quote. 

Terms of Service for call recordings:

You are solely responsible to meet all legal requirements to record phone calls in your jurisdiction. We hold no liability In the event that any or all recorded calls are lost, corrupt, or inaccessible for any reason; including but not limited to human error, system failure, or cyber incidents. You are responsible for downloading and storing any call that you wish to retain.