The multimedia recording market is a high growth area with an estimated world market of some $1 billion in value.
This is according to Viv Crone, CEO of Spescom DataVoice, who explains how the industry has changed and progressed in recent years. "The beginning of multimedia transaction recording was voice loggers which simply retained analogue records of conversations on reels of magnetic tape.
"Although this was cumbersome, organisations were obliged to use it for different reasons. The one need was in public safety emergency response operations to have comprehensive records as a reference in case those answering emergency telephone calls were unable to immediately grasp critical details.
"The other main market was among companies that needed to record financial transactions initiated by phone. This was called liability or statutory recording, as it was kept as a backup for cases where disputes about the terms of transactions might arise.
"What these two approaches had in common was, firstly, that the recording was done as a necessity and, secondly, that the technology produced massive amounts of tape records that were difficult to archive and access at a later stage."
The transition to digital technology that allowed recordings to be stored directly as part of a call centre's IT system not only made such systems easier to use, but also facilitated the move to change the way business was conducted.
"Digital recording allowed for many improvements," says Crone. "Ultimately, it resulted in the creation of meaningful business-oriented solutions rather than simple add-on systems - and these solutions could be integrated with other front- and back-office systems.
"The benefits are immediately obvious including easier access with greatly enhanced security features and instant portability of the records across corporate networks even to remote locations.
"What is more important is that this enabled fundamental changes in the way of doing business. Secure recording solutions facilitated contracts and transactions based on verbal telephonic agreements, rather than written documents such as application forms.
"Advanced solutions offer increased efficiency, reduced costs and improved service to the customer. All this offers the company an essential, sustainable competitive-edge, not to mention the capacity to handle greater volumes of transactions in finer detail.
"Spescom has capitalised on its experience to become one of the world leaders in providing systems that handle live, or real-time, information. Live information is characterised by its transient or dynamic nature.
"This is far ahead of the old tape archiving systems. Proper multimedia recording is a critical management tool that allows companies to capture, manage and re-create the transactions on which its business processes depend. With a properly configured solution, this can handle thousands of daily events involving hundreds of agents in many physical locations."
Voice contact is also not the only medium for which Spescom systems are equipped and different media records can be stored and indexed for easy access so that all a specific customer's history can be made available at the push of a button.
"Apart from voice recording, a complete solution has to cover other common contact media," says Crone. "Fax transmissions can be digitally stored as easily as e-mail correspondence. With new communication channels developing - such as interactive chat via Web sites and instant messaging applications - other media formats begin to play a role.
"Lastly, there is video, which can originate from either internal surveillance systems or video-conferencing. In fact, Spescom systems have sophisticated abilities to display records of customer contact simultaneously alongside screen captures of how the agent or operator entered relevant information. This enables easy control of quality in the service offered to customers.
"Internet protocol (IP) has emerged as dominant format for integrated voice and data transfer and this makes it essential for businesses to run latest technology systems if they want to retain a competitive advantage. The key is to integrate information recording into the business process, which frequently involves application integration with legacy systems. Spescom is a leader in this area, providing IP and particularly VOIP (Voice over IP) recoding technology that is integrated into the leading IP enabled communication systems.
"The way of doing business has changed fundamentally, enabled by the new technology. What we are seeing is not just the convergence of IT and telephony. It is the convergence of live and static information through integrated business systems with clear advantages for corporate customers in key areas of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and maintaining a competitive-edge."
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