For call centers and sales teams, there are many benefits to recording your calls. From agent training to customer feedback, call recording is an easy way for businesses to gain insights and optimize performance.
But for those making calls in the United States, there are rules you need to follow. By maintaining call recording compliance, businesses can benefit from recorded calls while protecting customer privacy.
Top 4 Benefits of Call Recording
Businesses may choose to record calls for various reasons. Call recording (or call monitoring) is a relatively cheap and effective way to improve processes and monitor team performance.
Here are the top four benefits of call recording.
1. Quality Assurance
Recording phone calls helps you determine whether agents are meeting quality standards. For example, you can verify if agents are delivering excellent customer service, or adhering to specific standards and protocols.
You can then implement new processes to ensure that messaging stays consistent and customers are having positive experiences.
2. Training and Development
Identifying training opportunities is one of the main benefits of recording your calls. By listening to recorded calls, you can identify areas where agents may need additional training or coaching.
Reviewing call recordings can provide valuable insights into the performance of individual agents and the overall team. You can pinpoint individual strategies and techniques that lead to positive outcomes, and replicate them across the team.
This helps improve agent skills and performance over time, leading to better sales outcomes, higher customer satisfaction, and increased efficiency.
3. Compliance
Outbound callers need to follow various regulations and standards, such as data protection laws (e.g., HIPAA or CCPA) and telemarketing laws (e.g., internal Do Not Call lists).
Reviewing call recordings helps ensure that agents are following these regulations, reducing the risk of compliance violations and penalties.
Call recording can also help protect your business if you make compliant calls to people who registered their numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNCR).
The recording can capture them making an inquiry or providing consent to receive future calls—establishing a business relationship. This would provide evidence that your subsequent calls to that person complied with the NDNCR rule under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
4. Customer Feedback and Insights
Call recordings provide an opportunity to gather feedback directly from customers, rather than having it relayed second-hand by an agent.
You can identify common issues, concerns, or suggestions raised by customers. This feedback enables your business to make informed decisions about product/service improvements, and enhance customer experience.
Call Recording Compliance Rules & Consent Requirements
While there are many benefits to call recording, there are just as many rules you need to follow. There is a federal law regarding call recording, but it is not the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In fact, the TCPA does not contain any rules pertaining to recording calls.
Federal law states that for a call to be legally recorded, only one party to the call needs to consent—which can be you. This law is commonly referred to as the one-party consent rule or single-party consent rule.
Every state, except Vermont, has its own call-recording laws. The majority of the states’ call-recording laws follow federal law and are one-party consent laws.
But 13 states have all-party consent laws, meaning all parties to a call must consent for the call to be legally recorded.
States With All-Party Consent Laws
- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Illinois
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- *Michigan
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- Pennsylvania
- Washington
(*Note: There is some debate as to whether Michigan should be on this list given a court ruling interpreting whether a party to a conversation can eavesdrop on it.)
If you are making calls from one of those states or to one of those states, and you want to record those calls, you must get consent from the called parties for it to be considered legal.
In some instances, including a clear statement at the beginning that the call will be recorded can be enough to constitute consent from the called party—assuming they stay on the call after hearing that statement.
For example, in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., the Supreme Court of California recognized that such a statement at the beginning of a call was enough to comply with California’s all-party consent law.
Key Takeaways
There are many strong benefits to call recording for call centers and sales teams, like agent training and customer feedback. But you must get the necessary consent to record your calls.
In one-party consent states, only your consent is required. However, in states with all-party consent laws, it’s important to include a statement in your sales scripts that clearly states the call is being recorded.
By following state-specific calling rules, you can maximize the benefits of call recording while keeping your business compliant.
This article is only offered for informational purposes; it is not legal advice. Please consult a qualified attorney for your specific compliance needs.
Joe Bowser
Joe Bowser is a partner at Roth Jackson. He has been practicing communications and marketing law for two decades. He advises and defends calling and SMS platform providers (like Readymode), carriers/VoIP providers, and heavy users of those services in their wide range of compliance needs. In his spare time, you can find him taking his boys to their sports, getting in a workout of his own, or catching an Arsenal match.
