Uses of Voice Loggers

By Michael Leibowitz
June 2004

A funny thing has happened with voice loggers.  It was assumed that users of the product bought it to listen to calls.  "He said, she said" is such a problem in the industry, that a logging system can often be the best defense.  Voice loggers also let you retrieve calls very easily, but most users discovered that voice logging is an excellent training and quality assurance (QA) tool as well.

As a result, some voice loggers now have an enhanced feature set to make QA simpler and more useful. For example, some models offer integrated agent assessment forms, listing questions to be answered while listening to calls.  Another feature is to store video screen shots.  Now when users listen to a call, they can also see what was on the agent's screen at that time.

The voice loggers are also a powerful tool for protecting and defending legal liabilities.  Calls can be reviewed for the accuracy of the information passed between caller and agent.

Some voice loggers also have an optional Web interface.  With this password-protected function, managers can retrieve calls, listen to conversations, see the screen shots, and even perform QA assessments.  With a Web interface, clients can also be given access to their own calls, reducing customer service overhead costs.

When voice loggers are fully interfaced with, or internal to, a call-processing platform, they are able to capture many additional fields of data that relate to a call.  This information is saved in a database that makes searching for a call easy.  Users can search by time, date, agent, client, caller ID, and several other parameters.  The search will return one or more matches and display them in a list on the screen or in a Web browser.  Users can then listen to the call and save it to file or email it.

Some voice loggers can track a call that is passed from one agent to another.  During playback, the voice loggers will seamlessly combine the recordings into one continuous stream.  With this feature, there are no more time-consuming attempts to piece a call together!  Many modern voice loggers can also include calls processed by remote agents as well.

Today, many voice loggers are a software solution, using the agents' PCs, along with a server.  There is no tape deck to maintain (or break).  If the server is down, each station will continue to record calls and will store files locally.  When the server is back up, these voice loggers will automatically update the server.  Voice loggers that use this distributed processing concept make them reliable and robust.  They are also economically scalable, as the only cost to add a station is the software license.

Behind the scenes, most voice loggers use either an Access or SQL database.  Depending on the system, other features may include built-in security levels, agent performance reports, voice-activated recording, station-selectable audio settings, built-in diagnostics, and a scheduler that allows recordings to be emailed automatically.  Whether you want to find out what happened on any particular call or you want to enhance your quality assurance program, today's voice loggers provide the features and functions you need.

Mike Liebowitz is the owner of Professional Answering Service in Charleston, SC and uses an Infinity Voice Logger.

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