Storacall Guide to Call Recording

The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

CONTENTS
Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2 What is a Call Recorder? ............................................................................................................ 3 Who needs to record calls and why? ......................................................................................... 4 Methods of Call Recording......................................................................................................... 6 Trunk or Extension Side Recording: which is most suitable for you? ........................................ 8 Recording calls from an IP switch ............................................................................................ 10 Recording Mobile Phones ........................................................................................................ 11 Storage and Archiving .............................................................................................................. 11 Which Solution? ....................................................................................................................... 12 Features and Benefits of the Storacall Recorder ..................................................................... 14 PCI DSS the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards ............................................... 17 Pay as You Use Call Recording ................................................................................................. 18 Evaluate Agent Training Software ........................................................................................ 19 Glossary .................................................................................................................................... 20 Storacall Contacts .................................................................................................................... 22

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

WHAT IS A CALL RECORDER?

Over the last few years Call Recorders have become an increasingly commonplace piece of equipment in offices across the UK. Most call recorders are delivered to customers in a similar format, as tower or rack mounted PCs comprised of mainly offtheshelf hardware components and proprietary third party software. It is increasingly the case that modern call recorders have some kind of network capability, allowing users to search for calls across the LAN or internet. Systems may come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, ranging from single line analogue boxes that record directly from handsets on the desktop to industrial strength 4U chassis that straddle multiple PRIs and capture thousands of calls a day. It is important that you choose the right recorder for your requirements and that means understanding how your needs might change you might for example add more extensions to your PABX or swap out your traditional telephone system for a Voice Over IP (VoIP) solution. However large or small the system, certain requirements remain the same call recorders must be robust, easy to use and must provide the user with a range of call data by which to search and archive their calls. These include: Calling Line Identifier (CLI) Called number Time and Date User or Extension Information Call Duration Manual or Automatic custom fields such as Policy number Group, Team or Department

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

WHO NEEDS TO RECORD CALLS AND WHY?

Not so long ago the use of call recording was largely restricted to banks, financial institutions and government agencies. While these still form a large part of the call recording market, the use of recorders has grown significantly over the last few years into other market areas such as retail, insurance and healthcare. There are many reasons why an organisation might decide to record their calls, here are a few;

COMPLIANCE
FSA Recent changes to FSA regulations have meant that call recording is becoming increasingly commonplace within all companies subject to FSA regulation. This extends now to mortgage and insurance brokers. PCI DSS The PCI DSS is a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. International, to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis.

TELEPHONE TRANSACTIONS
It has long been the case that any organisation taking financial transactions over the telephone have recorded their calls. The recent growth in telephone sales has been a major driver to call recording.

PERFORMANCE
The growth of the call centre has been another major driver for call recording. Most mid large call centres will have a call recorder (and possibly adjunct evaluation software) in place to help with training and development of call centre agents.

SECURITY
Many public institutions, particularly those with a high profile or controversial reputation opt for call recording.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording In short there are a huge number of reasons why an organisation might consider call recording if there is an opportunity for fraud, compensation or illegal activity, there is a need for call recording. In all circumstances it is crucial that calls are securely encrypted for storage, this means that calls cannot be tampered with or amended. Call recorders that do not provide secure encryption cannot be used for evidence, Storacall stores calls in a fully encrypted proprietary format.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

METHODS OF CALL RECORDING

There are several ways to record calls, each of which has its own advantages and drawbacks. It is important to understand what options are available to you and determine which of the various configurations would best fit your needs.

EXTENSION RECORDING
Sometimes known as station recording or handset recording, this kind of system records calls direct from the PBX handsets. In an extension recording configuration, calls are recorded from behind the PBX. This allows the recorder to record internal as well as external calls. There are three main extension variations namely Analogue, Digital or VoIP. If you opt for an extension recording system you are not likely to require any other kind of integration to the PBX such as SMDR or CTI. Extension devices are wide and varied with a multitude of vendors and devices that may be handsets, headsets, analogue phones, turrets, dealerboards, microphones and speakers. Details of devices supported by the Storacall recorders can be found on our website or a member of the sales team will be happy to discuss your requirements. The diagram below illustrates the basic configuration of an extension recording system. Note how the recording device interfaces directly with the PBX handsets (or headsets, turrets etc), rather than the PSTN trunk. Please note that no wiring goes directly to the handset, all connectivity is done on your PBX patch panel.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

TRUNK SIDE RECORDING:

Sometimes known as line side recording, a trunk recording solution interfaces directly with the analogue or ISDN PSTN trunks before they reach the PBX system. Trunk side recording uses high impedance passive tap technology to interface to the incoming trunks without terminating the line or impacting on the strength of the signal. In these kind of configurations the incoming trunks are fitted with T splitters or RJ45 doublers, small pieces of kit fitted to the lines which divert the E1 signal directly into the recorder. Unlike an extension recording system, trunk recorders do not always interface with the PABX. This means that a basic trunk solution will not provide the recorder with details such as extension/agent data and will only present the recorder with basic information from the Dchannel such as time/ date and CLI. It is usual therefore when implementing a trunk solution, to perform integration with the PABX in order to gather this missing agent/extension information. This is usually achieved by integrating with the SMDR or CTI ports on the PBX. Such integration would also allow specified extensions to be excluded from recording. The diagram below illustrates the basic configuration of a trunk recording solution. Note how the recorder interfaces directly with the incoming lines rather than the extensions.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

TRUNK OR EXTENSION SIDE RECORDING: WHICH IS MOST SUITABLE FOR YOU?

This is usually the key driver behind which solution you look to purchase, the following advantages and disadvantages that need to be carefully considered when deciding your requirements: In terms of functionality, recording at the extension offers a more comprehensive solution than trunk recording. Extension recording will allow you to record internal calls, track holds and transfers and will also provide a more complete set of data on which extension took the call without the need for further integration with the PBX. The disadvantage of extension recording when compared to trunk is cost digital extension recording tends to be slightly more costly than trunk recording when compared on a channel for channel basis. Trunk recording allows you to capture all calls that use the recorded trunks so tends to be better suited to environments where organisations need a blanket recording solution. The downside of this is that without some form of PBX integration there will be no information on the handsets presented to the recording system, and all handsets, including those of management and HR will be recorded. Most phone systems offer an SMDR port free of charge, Storacall can integrate with these phone systems via Euclid and provide the handset information as well as optional recording on Management and HR phones.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

IN SUMMARY

TRUNK RECORDING Pros Provides a full, blanket solution Tends to be less costly Easy to implement

Cons No extension info without integration Will not record agent to agent calls

EXTENSION RECORDING Pros Provides full extension information Records agent to agent calls Track calls cradle to grave with CTI

Cons Tends to be more costly 4 wire handsets cost even more

More advice on which solution you choose is covered in more detail in the Which Solution? section of this guide.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

RECORDING CALLS FROM AN IP SWITCH

There are a number of ways in which this can be done and the methods vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. The information given here should not be considered valid for all call recording systems and relates only to recording IP calls on a Storacall system. The first thing to establish when considering a VoIP recording solution is whether or not the system is IP throughout. It is quite common for an organisation to have an IP enabled switch running standard TDM digital telephones, this is particularly common with Avaya IP office, where the relatively high cost of IP extensions leads many people to keep their existing handsets. If this is the case the solution should be treated exactly the same as any other digital extension implementation for our purposes, it is NOT a VoIP recording system. Storacalls IP recorder works in a very straightforward and costeffective way. Unlike digital extension recording where a physical connection needs to be made to each recorded extension, VoIP recording on Storacall interfaces directly with the IPPBX via a SPAN or mirrored port. A mirrored port is simply an ethernet port on the IP switch set up to replicate the voice traffic, implementation of this is the responsibility of the PBX vendor and is usually a straightforward and lowcost exercise. It should be noted that IP Recording usually requires integration of some sort, usually TAPI as this seems to be a standard port on most IPPBXs. IP calls can be recorded without this but will usually only pick up date/ time.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

RECORDING MOBILE PHONES

These days many people are working remote from the office and need to make and take strategically important phone calls, wherever they may be. Increasingly many organisations are now required to record every calls for legal compliance management or dispute resolution and the ability to record mobile calls completes the picture. The Storacall Mobile server allows companies to record GSM and mobile telephone conversations in the same way as they record land line calls to and from their call centre or communications system. From emergency situations to verbal contracts, or simply just to monitor the quality and quantity of calls from and to your mobile workforce, the Storacall mobile server provides the solution.

STORAGE AND ARCHIVING

Another important considerations when considering a call recording solution is storage and archiving media. Most modern midhigh end recording systems come equipped with a dedicated hard drive for call archiving and provide an alternative removable medium for redundancy purposes (usually a DVDRAM). One of the most common questions we get asked is how long will my HDD last? The answer to this question depends on a huge number of variables; number of agents, call traffic and the length of calls all have to be taken into consideration. For this reason there is no definitive answer to this question the best we can do is offer an approximate answer in call hours, based on the compression rates used to store the voice data and the storage available on the system. In most environments you will require the archive of all calls to be carried out automatically onto the system HDD and set up the DVDRAM drive to archive simultaneously when the DVDRAM reaches capacity this is simply replaced with a new one and placed on a shelf for storage. Many call recorders will have an automatic alert system that notifies users (via email or SMS) when either archive drive nears its capacity. Typically this happens at around 85% of capacity, which allows you to swap out their DVDRAM in plenty of time. NAS/SAN network storage solutions, can be offered with the Storacall solution, effectively offering almost unlimited storage capacity. For clients with exceptionally high storage needs this can be an excellent low cost solution please contact Storacall for further information and configuration details.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

WHICH SOLUTION?
As mentioned previously besides selecting the right number of channels, the single most important consideration when considering a call recording solution is deciding whether a trunk or extension side solution would be most appropriate. The guide below offers some tips and suggestions that will help you determine the best solution for your needs; Do I need to track transfer information? Some clients will require a cradle to grave solution that is capable of logging the details of call transfers, effectively tracking and recording the life of the call as it passes around the PBX. Do I need to record agent to agent calls? Some clients wish to record extension to extension calls to prevent harassment or for added security. If this is the case only an extension side solution will be suitable. This is also a useful training aid to see who has been asking what types of questions. Do I have a large number of trunks, but only a handful of agents that need recording? If your call centre is part of a larger corporate network, it may be financially beneficial to record only the agent extensions instead of blanket recording the whole business. If the answer to any of the above questions is yes an extension side solution should be considered. Other useful indicators to consider; A basic fact that is often overlooked is that extension side recording gives you the agents side of the call while trunk side gives you the customers side. Some clients may want to know what their callers are saying whilst in the queue or on hold (e.g. this hold music is driving me mental, why have I been holding for 20 minutes?). If this is a requirement, a trunk solution is needed. Conversely some customers want to know the types of questions their agents are asking of each other when callers are on hold (i.e. for training purposes). If this is a requirement, an extension solution is needed. Finally, this is such an obvious consideration that it is often overlooked but scalability is something that you should consider. A trunk side recorder will by definition handle an unlimited number of extensions this makes it very easy and cost effective for clients to add new users to their system, all you need to do is add the extension to the PBX and re configure the recorder to include the new entry. Copyright 2007 Storacall Voice Systems P a g e | 12

The Storacall Guide to Call Recording Adding new extensions to an extension side recorder will require engineering callouts and additional hardware and licensing, this can make it more expensive in the long term. So while there are no hard and fast rules, providing you have clear expectations and understanding of various call recording configurations you should be able to make a more informed decision as to which solution will not only fit your current requirements, but also your future ones. Storacall appreciate that this type of technology is going to form an integral part of your IT/Telephony infrastructure and will be only to glad to offer you our help/advice when you are deciding which solution fits your needs.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF THE STORACALL RECORDER

Cost effective and reliable recording solutions providing 2 to 120 channels of recording per module with unlimited modules and all the features of higher priced recording solutions.

WEBBASED INTERFACE
Unlike any other call recording platforms currently available, Storacall does not require customers to load any application software to your desktop or client PCs. The unique architecture of Storacall means that it runs just like any other web page and all a user requires in order to use Storacall is a browser. What this means is fewer maintenance overheads for system administrators and no clashes or problems with conflicting desktop applications.

FAST SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL

The lowbandwidth audio streaming technology means that recordings are delivered extremely quickly, minimising the risk of network bottlenecks. The advanced design lets you search, retrieve and playback calls with impressive simplicity and speed. The system is highly intuitive and so simple that minimal user training is required. SEARCH OPTIONS Basic search Advanced search Saved Searches

date, time, channel, users name or extension call duration, CLI, dialled digits, notes or a combination of all saved searches allow you to create templates for easy call search and playback

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

CALL EXPORT
Export your calls and then send copies to clients or store for training material.

AUTOMATIC ARCHIVE
Automatically archive calls to any NAS/SAN solution. ADVANCED VOICE COMPRESSION REDUCES STORAGE COSTS Storacalls industry leading voice compression technology significantly reduces network loading which in turn leads to radically reduced costs in archive storage up to five times less than other systems. Storacall maintains an impressively high standard of recording even at the highest compression rates, which means that you can significantly reduce your archive overheads with no discernable impact on playback quality.

ENCRYPTION AND PASSWORD PROTECTION AS STANDARD

All calls are encrypted and password protected giving you total peace of mind and allowing you to meet your legal recording requirements.

Recorded calls are stored using 256 bit Blowfish algorithm symmetric block cipher for total peace of mind. Passwords are fully encrypted providing total security, you can set password cycle/renewal and the system administrator has a password recovery option.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

ANALOGUE, DIGITAL, BRI AND PRI SUPPORT

Storacall will connect to almost ALL of the currently available telephony and is also developed to handle new and emerging forms, thus future proofing your investment. LINE TYPE SUPPORT Trunk Extension Primary rate ISDN30, Basic rate ISDN2, Analogue Digital extensions, ISDN stations, Analogue extensions, 2way Radio

SOLID RELIABILITY
Storacall was designed from the outset using universally accepted open standards technologies. This, coupled with the adoption of 'offtheshelf' hardware components, means that the system is very straightforward to integrate and maintain and reliable in operation.

HIGHLEVEL EXPERIENCE
Storacall has been supplying systems and providing service to an impressive list of clients for over 40 years, including government departments, utilities and companies in the retail, manufacturing and service sectors. We supply solutions for a wide range of operations including call centre, help desk, contact centre and emergency services. Our experience gives us a special understanding of telephone call recording.

DEVELOPED USING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGIES

Storacall has been developed using Microsoft ASP net 3.5 development & application environment with Silverlight 4 multiple browser media manager & player

NO ADDITIONAL HARDWARE REQUIRED

Storacall is a true turnkey solution, our prices include ALL hardware thus eliminating those nasty surprises you get from other solutions.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

PCI DSS THE PAYMENT CARD INDUSTRY DATA SECURITY STANDARDS

The PCI DSS is a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. International, to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis. The PCI DSS must be met by all organizations (merchants and service providers) that transmit, process or store payment card data. The PCI DSS (sometimes referred to as a compliance standard) is not a law. It is a contractual obligation applied and enforced by means of fines or other restrictions directly by the payment providers themselves and based on best endeavours to meet these procedures by the organizations taking the credit card payments. The core of the PCI DSS is a group of principles and accompanying requirements, around which the specific elements of the DSS are organized: Build and Maintain a Secure Network Protect Cardholder Data Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program Implement Strong Access Control Measures Regularly Monitor and Test Networks Maintain an Information Security Policy Many organisations that are required to record telephone conversations also take credit card details over the phone from clients and accordingly the recording and storage of this data can become a PCI compliance issue. Storacall Voice Systems offer PCI DSS compliant solutions which not only protect your investment today but also in the future, encryption, password protection and also the inclusion of our CCM Module (Credit Card Masking) all form part of our product portfolio to ensure your recordings fully comply with the latest PCI DSS recommendations and guidelines. PCI is a complex subject but the Storacall sales team will be pleased to discuss this subject with you and explain in more detail how Storacall CCM will work for you.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

PAY AS YOU USE CALL RECORDING

Storacall have introduced a new concept for paying for your call recording requirements, StoracallMR is a revolutionary way to get a high level call recording solution at an affordable monthly price. Just like your gas and electricity bills, with StoracallMR you ONLY pay for what you use, if you record 5 calls or 500,000 calls you pay accordingly. The software is fitted with a Meter Reading function which provides the units used, each quarter Storacall will raise an invoice based on your call usage. A unit is an hour of recorded conversation, you will have a fixed price per unit so you can easily budget for your quarterly bills.

NO HIDDEN COSTS
Storacall provide all the hardware and software required for recording and your system is covered by a maintenance contract for the term of your agreement. Even if you expand your telephony you will have no upgrade costs for the StoracallMR, the only price you pay after the initial setup and training costs are for the units of call recording you actually use.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

EVALUATE AGENT TRAINING SOFTWARE

As we have seen, there are many reasons why an organisation might require call recording. One further significant value call recording can add to your business is in helping to improve the performance/ call handling skills of your call centre agents. Evaluate from Storacall is a fully featured software application designed to facilitate training and development in the call centre environment. Evaluate allows you to design and create scoring templates, report on your agents current/historical performance and produce graphical reports to identify the strengths and weaknesses within your teams all in a single, easy to use software package.

Unlike most reporting applications, Evaluate allows you to build an online assessment sheet with minimal effort. So that you can provide an objective scoring system Evaluate allows you to add scoring guides so that all supervisors/ assessors are using the same criteria to score calls. You can even highlight specific sections of the call using the bookmark feature allowing you to provide your agents with detailed feedback on their performance and training needs.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

GLOSSARY
CLI Caller Line Identification (CLI). This is the callers number which appears when your handset rings. CTI Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). A software module which allows a computer/program to completely control the phone system. Dchannel The channel in which the call data is sent in a digital system (digital extensions or ISDN trunks). DTMF Dualtone multifrequency (DTMF) signaling is used for telephone signaling over the line in the voicefrequency band to the call switching center. These are the tones you can hear when dialing out from your handset. HDD Computer hard drive. ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a circuitswitched telephone network system, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in better quality and higher data speeds than are available with analog "plain old telephone service" (POTS). LAN A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings. NAS/SAN Networkattached storage (NAS) is a filelevel data storage unit connected to a computer network providing file storage for network clients. PBX A Private Branch eXchange (PBX) is a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office. PRI The primary rate interface (PRI) is a telecommunications standard for carrying multiple voice and data transmissions between two physical locations. All data and voice channels are ISDN and operate at 64 kbit/s.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording Europe, Australia and most of the world use the E1, which is composed of 30 B channels and one D channel. PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world's public circuitswitched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the world's public IPbased packetswitched networks. Originally a network of fixedline analog telephone systems, the PSTN is now almost entirely digital, and now includes mobile as well as fixed telephones. It is sometimes referred to as the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). SMDR Station Messaging Detail Record, a way to record activity in a telecom system, also known as Call detail record or (CDR). This information is used by call accounting software VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IPbased network.

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The Storacall Guide to Call Recording

STORACALL CONTACTS
We will be happy to discuss your specific requirements or explain any of the options listed in this document, please call Storacall sales on 01932 710710 or contact your local sales representative from the list below, we look forward to hearing from you and hope you found this document of interest.

Carl Nancollas Northern Sales Executive. carln@storacall.co.uk DDI: 01932 710 762 Mob: 07740 673 857

Joe Jestico Southern Sales Executive. Joej@storacall.co.uk DDI: 01932 710 729 Mob07740 673 822 On the Web www.storacall.co.uk

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