Sharing Ideas for Creating Customer Service Excellence
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Member Asking -
Call Recording
Considerations:
(top) Is it usual for companies to have the call center representatives sign a document indicating they have been notified that their calls may be recorded or is just letting them know good enough? What is the industry norm? Do you have your reps sign anything? How do they react? Do you have a template of the document you have people sign that you can share with our member? Member Thanking the Members: Would you convey my thanks to all NWCCP members who responded to my question about recording phone calls? What a fantastic resource! Its great to have a community to go to with questions about call centers. We all have similar issues with a whole host of different ways to handle them. I appreciate everyone’s willingness to share their knowledge. It really helped me to be able to talk with our Legal Department about the issue and know the industry norm. I have missed the people involved in NWCCP and am glad to be back part of the group! Thanks again, Lisa
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Members Answering:
1. We do, but I don't have a copy of the form handy. 2. Because we are unionized we have specific items in our contract that prohibits employers from monitoring calls unless the employee has been informed. I believe that there are also some interpretations in BOLI laws that address this. I suggest that a written document is always better than "he said she said" scenarios. 3. It is best to have a short, simple document that informs the rep that their calls will be monitored and recorded for quality purposes. This protects any privacy issues that the rep may have and alerts them up front that we will be listening to ALL calls (although we disconnect any personal calls if they come in while we are call monitoring). 4. We have a Support Center Guidelines document that mentions in very general terms that we will record their calls and they sign a form saying that they read and understood the guidelines when they first start at the Help Desk. But the language in the doc is not written in “legalese.” We also mention the recording aspect during the hiring process, so there isn’t much room for surprise later. Most candidates are aware that this is a call center norm, so I have never spoken with anyone who seemed surprised at the idea. 5. My suggestion for the member asking is that if they are concerned about the legal aspects of such a document, they should probably consult their legal department. 6. Short answer: No signature is required of the employees. Long answer: Employees are advised verbally during training that random customer calls will be recorded and scored. All customer phone call channels have a recording advising the customers that calls may be monitored for quality assurance. Employees are further trained and show the documents that they will be scored with during training; however, even the evaluations based on recorded calls do not require an employee’s signature. The evaluations are stored in the employees file as a reference. 7. Currently our Helpdesk Call Center does not recorded calls. However, our Operations Customer Service Representatives do have their calls recorded randomly. Their supervisors review these recorded calls with them on a quarterly basis for Quality Control. I had a brief chat with HR and was told that our Employees do not sign anything about their calls being recorded, they are just informed from day one that it will happen. Calls are only being recorded during phone shifts and never outside of that. I was a little surprised to find out that our customer service reps don't sign anything, especially since they're union. The external customers know via our IVR stating that their call could be recorded for Quality Assurance. 8. We do not have our CSRs sign anything, however, they are all fully aware that recording does take place. 9. Below is the section that I found in the orientation document that is given to new agents. It isn't actually something that they sign. Company xx, to ensure quality control, employee safety, security, and customer satisfaction, may conduct workplace monitoring. Employees who regularly communicate with customers may have their telephone conversations monitored or recorded. Telephone monitoring is used to identify and correct performance problems through targeted training. Improved job performance enhances our customer's image of Interact, Inc. as well as their satisfaction with our service. 10. No document. We tell them. The message about recording is on all of our voice IVR’s and our web chat intro. 11. At the xxx contact centers we ask our representatives to sign a form that states that they know that their calls are recorded. We were advised by our Legal Department to do this. 12. At xxx we have the agents sign a document. 13. We SAY on the phone that the call may be recorded… but we don't have the ability to record and the agents know that. If we get that ability, I'm not aware of anything that would require a signature, but I would run it by my legal department first. We have a Legal note that comes up every time we (anyone) log into our computers that says, this is xxx equipment and we can look at, copy or remove anything we want. 14. Typically in any state the reps do sign a disclosure. 15. We do have all our representative sign a form; as this is just part of new hire training it is a non-issue. As the observing of calls is one of the biggest coaching tools and directly related to things such as bonus it is looked upon positively for the most part. 16. Yes, we have all associates sign a document disclosing that calls may be recorded. This is kept in their personnel file. We have never had an issue with associates disputing this policy. I think associates expect it in a call center. 17. Yes, we have our reps sign. No one gives us any fuss about it. 18. We ask our Representatives to sign a form that states that they know that their calls are recorded. We were advised by our Legal Department to do this. 19. We have the agents sign a document. Resources relative to this topic (Provided by Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions) Washington is one of 12 states that require both parties know a call is being recorded; the caller and the rep.
These are from the UK but might offer some helpful guidelines and ideas. EXAMPLE TELEPHONE MONITORING CONSENT FORM
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