Sales call recording software

From contact centers to smaller operations, advanced sales performance tools are now available to all sales professionals.

Find out how sales call recording works and why you might want to use it in your sales training, coaching, and analysis efforts.

Consider how much effort it takes companies to determine what makes their customers happy. Simply asking them is often the most effective way to find out.

There’s nothing more refreshing than a revealing conversation with someone from your target market. The candid simplicity of phone calls still plays an important role in fast and efficient customer research.

While boosting sales performance, call recording software can help you:

• Learn what customers truly want

• Improve customer support

• Resolve (and even prevent) problems and complaints

• Reflect on the most authentic customer feedback at any time

During sales calls, you can receive the most genuine expression of customer interest in the activities that impact revenue most. On the other hand, your customers might show no interest. Analyzing sales calls will help you focus on what will boost your company’s bottom line with maximum effect.

When used diligently, sales call analysis will help sales reps and managers improve performance on an individual and organizational scale.

Benefits for sales reps

Sales reps are often left learning their trade through trial and error. Even the best sales coaching methods aren’t as effective as studying sales outreach.

Studying sales call recordings can help sales staff:

• Share their experiences without bias

• Compare and contrast successful and unsuccessful sales calls

• Contrast language, tone, and other qualities with customer reactions

• Reflect on their skill level and how they perform under pressure

• Train using the most genuine sales data available

Benefits for sales managers

Behind almost every great sales rep is an equally skilled sales coach, manager, or supervisor. They often act as mentors and play an essential role in honing a sales rep’s lifelong professional skills.

From a managerial position, sales call recordings can help:

• Fine-tune quality controls

• Give reps more targeted assistance

• Analyze top performers

• Identify traits that most impact sales

• Cross-reference sales call data with past communications, customer relationship management (CRM), and any other relevant data

When you’re looking to buy sales call recording software, take a moment to reflect on the bigger picture. Choosing the right phone recording app, platform, or web service requires a good understanding of your company’s:

• Phone system and related technology

• Technical skills

• Customer activity

• Sales methods

The following are some of the main features you should keep in mind when looking for a sales call recording system:

Sales call analysis

Your main goal is to improve customer analysis and understand your market base. When all the technical aspects are under control, you and your sales team can focus on analyzing your sales call records. However, this information won’t be of much use if you wind up with a clunky, poorly integrated recording database that’s hard to compare with other important customer data.

Before delving too far into the technical aspects, consider how you and your team will apply your sales call data once you have it. Analysis is the name of the game, so it makes sense to start with an analysis tool.

You’re off to a great start if, among other things, your analysis platform presents call recordings (including video) alongside text and statistical data.

Other useful features include:

• Automated transcription

• Topic tagging at sentence level

• Pattern recognition via an easy-to-search repository

• Machine learning processes for understanding sales and customer trends

• Standard sales metrics, such as:

• Sales velocity

• Top-selling products

• VIP customers

• Sales channel ranking

• Revenue metrics

Integrated video sales calls

Most communication is non-verbal. Having video sales recordings in your analysis suite will make your sales training more informed and dimensional.

Your call recording solution should also support multi-platform integrations, including Zoom video chat. You’ll be able to see your customers’ mannerisms, gestures, and other non-verbal body language to reveal the bigger picture.

User-friendliness

If it all sounds too complex at first glance, you’re in luck. Project templates for sales call recordings help your team quickly develop their own preferred processes. You can begin with a standard custom template, then design one of your own (or even several) for common sales call scenarios.

For example, you can prepare a sales call recording system for:

1. New customers

2. Previous customers

3. Cold calls

4. Warm leads

5. B2C

6. B2B

You’ll soon have a standardized process suited to your workflows—but only if your analytics platform has inbuilt features and efficiency tools made specifically for sales calls.

Technical requirements

User-friendliness also involves technical considerations. These considerations will likely be based on awareness of your own technical requirements, ranging from:

• Sales call volume

• Phone systems, such as on-premise private branch exchange (PBX) or cloud-based voice-over IP (VoIP)

• Storage mediums, protocols, and accessibility

• Your broader communication suite, including:

• SMS

• Email

• Web chat

• Audio calls

• Video calls

Unless you’re extremely tech-savvy, you’ll want an easy, streamlined experience. When comparing call recording systems, look out for any of the following technical features:

• Automatic call detection recording (packet sniffing)—a function typically reserved for IP-based calling (like VoIP)

• Employee-initiated recordings (usually best supported by PBX systems with extensive call-routing options)

• Call monitoring—helpful for live sales call analysis

• Metadata storage—for easier sorting and searchability (of call times, phone numbers, and other supporting data)

• Cloud-based virtual telephony—useful for hybrid, remote, and international businesses

Sales call records make it easy to analyze a customer’s mindset and motivations at the later stages of the buying journey. However, they are most useful when compared with previous data.

You can use sales call recordings to:

1. Estimate how previous customer interactions impact late-stage buying habits

2. Predict changes in a customer’s future buying patterns

A scalable customer analysis platform built for sales calls can help your business:

• Compile your customer’s communication history to identify patterns that affect sales choices

• Contrast customer traits before, during, and after sales calls

• Compare feedback from different points in the buyer journey

• Evaluate how a customer’s motivations change throughout their relationship with your brand

• Place sales call performance within the wider context of revenue health

Here are the most popular sales recording solutions in 2023 along with their standout features. Keep the above tips in mind to select the sales call recording system best-suited to your needs:

1. Zendesk Suite — support for live chat and polished branding services

2. HGS Agent X — puts a greater emphasis on the customer experience (CX)

3. Ringover — supports SMS, group calling, video calls, and international calling

4. Freshdesk — offers broad customer support and multichannel integration

5. Twilio — emphasis on customization and scalability

6. Aircall — full call-center support, with integrated sales and customer support services

7. Weave — finely interwoven call support across every customer touchpoint

8. CallHippo — provides workflow automation and versatile virtual telephony

9. LiveAgent — primarily a help desk solution, supporting live chat and call recording

10. Ultatel — combines internet calling with video calls, SMS, chat, and business app integration

Do you have to tell a customer the call is being recorded?

Yes. This falls under “one-party consent” laws. All US states have a minimum standard for at least one-way consent during recordings. Note that some states have two-party consent laws, and what’s legally defined as “consent” differs by state.

Familiarize yourself with your state’s laws. Look for the official repository of “promulgated” laws, not just popular legal websites. Consider how a customer denying consent may affect a recording’s legality.

How do you inform the customer their call is being recorded?

A simple notice at the beginning of the call is the most effective way. You can usually incorporate the notice into an automated message or train your sales reps to ask for permission on each call.

If you’re using SMS for marketing purposes, look into how you might integrate legal documentation for both SMS opt-ins/opt-outs and call recording consent.