My company is looking to incorporate call recording through our Nortel Option 11 phone switch.

I have used RACAL recordings at another call centre, but would not recommend it. I was wondering if there is a better recording package available that is compatable with our switch? We are not looking to spend a great deal of money.

You will find that most/all call recording packages will integrate with the Nortel meridian option 11.

Currently Verint are making great strides in the finance industry, the solution is also cost effective. However that's open to your own interpretation

Witness are a recognised and respected leader and Nice is cutting edge technology and probably out of your price range.

You could also look at Network based solutions from companies like Opal. The network based option is cheaper but not cost effective long term and you are also allowing someone else to manage your infrastructure.

That's food for thought, but if you want to give us more detail we would be happy to advise further.

Jason

Veritape have a very flexible solution that you can try cheaply

You could also look at Network based solutions

I'd strongly agree with this - it's most likely where you're going to find good value call recording.

The other cheap option is agent / station side recording. Most of the standard call recording solutions record at the trunk.

Agent side recording's great in practice but it can become a b*tch to keep control of.

It really comes down to how much data you need to log next to the call recording.

Regards,
Darryl

There are different solutions depending on if you are recording digital or IP phones. All the main players will support Nortel. There are plenty of guys on this forum more than happy to sell you a solution. Take a note of what Jason has said. Hes covered just about all the markers.

E-Talk for Voice and Data!!

Could you elaborate a little more Julian? If it wasn't you I might have deleted that last post thinking it was an ad.... ;-)

Hi

Depending on your size of business then the market for call recorders generally shapes up along the following lines:

Enterprise: Verint, Witness & Nice
Mid Size: Activa & Mercom
Low: Retell, Storacall etc.

I'd recommend getting a few vendors in to present to you. It will give you an idea of what is available and allow you to shape your requirements against your budget.

Not all vendors are equal, watch out for hidden costs - storage media etc.

Hope that helps.

James

Hi,

The best advice I can give is to be very careful!

With call recording, the answers to very specific questions will point you in the direction of a specific technology, functional requirement and supplier that is best suited to your needs. It can be difficult to get it right if you don't know the key questions to ask or the information about your company that you need to give to suppliers.

If you are unable to accurately articulate your requirements then there is a danger that you will not end up with the solution that you need.

I would suggest that you take the foillowing steps at a minimum:

1. Evaluate your expected returns and investment budget. It is important that you know what this is before you go to suppliers rather than taking a number of quotes and then trying to justify the investment internally.

2. Determine what technology/recording architecture best suits your requirements. For example: trunk-side, extension side, network, hosted, IP, hybrid etc etc. Your reasons for wanting to record calls in the first place, the way in which you interact with your customers, the way you route calls around your business, appraise your staff and your plans for the future will all influence this.

3. Agree your priorities from which you will make a decision. At a minimum this should include a weighting for functionality, service/support, price and risk. If price is all important then a network solution would be a good bet. If risk is key then an established vendor with a track record with Nortel, your industry and your set-up is important.

4. Agree a process and timescales to evaluate and select suppliers and stick to it.

5. Consider the implications on other technology and projects. Quality monitoring, agent analytics and WFM could all be considered as part of a wider workforce optimisation project. I notice that you have posted a separate question regarding WFM. Combining the two projects would be a sensible option.

When you come to approaching suppliers, the ones listed by other posts are certainly a good place to start. Darryl is right that you should look at network based solutions as well. The only thing that I would add is that QM and the capture of extension side info can be complicated if you opt for a network recorder. I guess it comes back to how you determine your requirements in teh first place...

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Steven

We use Datapulse (CallParrot!), with our Symposium system - voip. It's simple but very effective.

Hi M.S

A bit more information would be of help ie what type of call centre to do you run your member details are not giving much infomation and what does M S stand for ?

Also typical questions for call recording would be

1 How many channels do you need to record ?
2 Do you want to record extension side or trunk side ( trunk side can be more cost effective)
3 Are you looking at quality monitoring ?
4 Are you looking at Screen Capture ?
5 Are you looking at emotion detection ?
6 Where are you based ?

There are quite a few flavours of call recording so if you could be a bit more broader we could narrow things down a bit

Also what are you trying to achieve with call recording ?

With My Regards

John

I agree with Stephen Willert's sensible approach - you need to be really clear on your requirements. I'd just like to add to his point number 3, regarding risk and price. There is another option which can dramatically cut your risk and your price, and that's using a system which you can rent on a short-term basis with no long-term commitment. Renting would allow you to prove to yourself whether the potential solution met all your requirements, without exposing yourself to the risk of having invested large sums of money upfront, prior to actually _using_ the solution.

Cam.

Cam,

I'm intrigued.

Obviously for short term and project based initiatives rental models or managed service offerings are ideal for clients, especially if their environment is flexing regularly. But what happens over the longer term? Is it cheaper to rent for 5-6 years than buy and maintain an equivalent system? Can you rent before you buy the solution to get the best of both worlds?

Thanks,

James

(Daryl/Justin/moderators: although I'm responding to James' direct question, I don't want this to sound too much like an ad. Please delete this post if you need to.)

Hi James,

Veritape's pricing policy is only rental. We offer customers both short- and long-term rental, and the monthly price goes down for longer terms, obviously. Typically, our customers will evaluate our software rental system alongside hardware/purchase solutions, and cost them over 3 or 5 years. The Veritape approach ensures that:

a) the customer spends less over the 3 or 5 years by renting a solution (compared with capex upfront hardware purchase plus 5 lots of annual support/maintenance), and

b) at the end of the 3-5 years, they _still_ have the most up-to-date recording system, because our rental prices include all software updates [i.e. if you buy hardware in 2007, you will still be running a 2007-level system in 2011].

Typically, our customers start with a short-term rental (say just monthly with no minimum commitment) and then move to 3-5 years after having used Veritape for a few months. And they can keep some licences on monthly rental in order to maintain flexibility for seasonal demand, or in case they see _reductions_ in numbers coming in the future.

If you want more information, do please just email me: cam dot ross at veritape dot com.

CR.