Why you need Call Recording

No need to keep changing tapes or wheel in a giant in-house recording server in the 21st century! Call recording is an increasingly accessible technology for small businesses that can be optioned onto phone systems, opening up a wealth of possibilities for improving customer service, dispute avoidance and data protection.

There are some good reasons why fully-virtualised call recording is worth considering:

 

Training Fuel

Phone calls are not just for dispute avoidance, but the audio is useful for other purposes: highlighting good examples of calls with customers or demonstrating what NOT to say. These examples are really useful in call centres, but also for staff training in other customer-service environments.

The best call-recording options will let you hold your call recordings in the cloud, reviewing and ‘clipping’ sections of those recordings on the web – helping you to get the best out of the available audio, or download the content you need to keep, while dispensing with the rest to keep storage retention costs low.

 

Compliance-Ready

In certain industries – particularly in the financial and legal sectors – call recording is an important part of showing your business is acting in good faith and fully within the rules, as well as being an economical way to build trust among customers that your organisation is professional.

As the technology becomes ever-more affordable, it’s likely we’ll see more regulatory bodies, insurers and asking businesses to accept recorded audio as a minimum threshold.

 

Get on the record.

It’s very easy for somebody else’s interpretation of what was said on a call can vary from your own – which leads to all sorts of difficult situations.

Announcing that calls are recorded in advance not only provides evidence in the event of a dispute, but pre-emptively warns callers of that fact – helping to cool the temperature of the call before it begins. So next time, get that call on the record!

 

For telecoms advice and expertise, please contact our team today.


First Look: New Polycom VVX450

Communications giant Poly (nee ‘Polycom’) have launched their new VVX450 series phone handsets – and our team at Lineal have taken it for a test drive.

On first impression, the new handset is exceptionally eye-catching – the square design certainly feels modern and cutting-edge, if a little serious. All the controls will feel very familiar to users of the very successful VVX410 and VVX411 handsets, but the phone’s 4.3″ full colour screen is the most dramatic improvement – with a wider display and higher definition that appear much sharper.

Much like the VVX411, the menus and buttons are simple and intuitive – continuing the same focus on ease-of-use that has seen Poly sell VVX phones in the hundreds of thousands across the UK, into a very diverse array of business sectors.

We were particularly impressed by the speakerphone. Polycom have cranked the in-built speaker up to eleven, and the Polycom VVX450 could easily be used as a capable conference phone for a typical meeting room.

polycom vvx450

Someone may have been slightly over-ambitious with the phone’s size: desks may include less paper these days, but the handset feels large and space might be an issue in more traditional working environments. As before, the VVX450 supports single-cable (‘POE’) network and power, PC pass-through, headsets and more, but is noticeably larger than the VVX411 predecessor, itself a substantial handset. Overall, the impression is that the new model may look more naturally at-home on the desk of an executive, rather than an occasional phone user.

For power users, the new handset also boast some new extras, including two USB ports for media and/or storage applications. VVX450 handsets will be available to Lineal cloud-hosted business phone system customers from July 2019.

 

For Communications and connectivity expertise and support, please contact Lineal today.

 


Lineal merges with Active Computing & Telecoms

Lineal Active Merger

Lineal Software Solutions recently merged with another local IT company, Active Computing & Telecoms Ltd, based in South Molton.

Active Computing formally joined with Lineal as of December, and will continue to offer quality business IT services across Devon as part of Lineal’s IT support division.

Nick Hews, Managing Director of Active explained: “I’m very pleased to see Active joining with Lineal: like Active, Lineal began right here in North Devon, and places a very special importance on listening to their customers’ needs – which was very important to us before moving ahead.”

Managing Director of Lineal and former branch chairman of the North Devon FSB, Mike Matthews said: “We’re delighted to be taking on Active Computing. Between us we can now offer the widest possible range of business IT & telephone systems, technical support and business accounting software.”

Following the Lineal Active merger, the two partners have recently launched their new website (www.lineal.co.uk) for 2016.

Former staff members from Active now work at the premises of Lineal, and added together the two companies have more than 50 years’ experience trading across the wider North Devon area and beyond.

 

Visit www.lineal.co.uk or call us on 01271 375999


Punching above its weight – how ShoreTel helps SMBs outclass the competition.

sobs

SMBs & ShoreTel

Presenting a professional face to the world relies upon efficient customer service, but if you’re just one small business starting out, how do you keep up?

ShoreTel’s Cloud Phone systems are a perfect example of how technology can be a force multiplier for SMBs allowing your small team to take on much bigger competition – and win.

Your goal should be to make dealing with your business stress-free and more convenient than bigger rivals. It’s no surprise that the UK Which? ‘Worst Customer Service’ Survey 2015 is topped by utility and telecoms companies – those with typically slow, large scale, poor quality interaction with customers over the phone.

A cloud-based phone system allows users to cleverly route incoming calls to the right place, by any method you choose – service level, skill matching, customer identity, caller location or simple priority. By deploying a smart call routing system to direct calls to the right person you can ensure that the customer spends as little time as possible holding on the line and gets their query answered.

In order to better serve customers when they call, ShoreTel’s unified communications platform can be configured to give members of your team the relevant details at their fingertips – such as simple screen pop-up containing a customer’s information. This helps your customer service team deal with queries faster, and in a more informed manner.

Being away from the phone need not be a barrier to SMBs either: voicemail and fax can also be routed onwards into transcribed email, so mobile working won’t hold you back from interacting with customers promptly. ShoreTel’s data also integrates with common CRM systems, seamlessly stitching the different strands of your business’ existing work flow together. Operating a business with a small staff, on the move, or across multiple locations? ShoreTel is made for you.

ShoreTel Connect’s Contact Centre is based around a monthly subscription service rather than a big hardware investment – a much more cost effective option for smaller businesses and ensuring a faster return on investment (ROI). Yet the true investment is in your reputation as a company – as a trusted business that is efficient and responsive to your customers’ needs.

Don’t get stuck holding: explore ShoreTel today.

To learn more, speak to somebody from Lineal today – call us on 01271 375999

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