Digital vs. Cassette Recording

[marioaz]

I'm looking for information (Pro's and Con's) for an inbound customer service contact center, between using call recording technology of Digital recording versus the old micro cassette tape recording of calls.

I need to know the advantages and disadvantages of the two.

[buckeyecc]

I would say the biggest con to Cassette Recording is record playback and retrieval. Having a digital recording allows you to use software to house and manage all of your recordings. It allows you to run detailed searches through the database for the recordings (e.g. on ANI, DNIS, Quality evaluations). Most digital call recording software out there has a quality component built into it. So you could potentially have a digital call recorder that will allow you to record/playback audio with desktop screen capture(a large benefit from the QA perspective), simultaneously score a call for quality, and have detailed reporting. I would recommend researching or viewing a demo of a digital call recording suite to see the full value of the technology. One company called CallCopy (www.callcopy.com) offers free demo's and is very cost effective.

The pros of a cassette recorder is that it is cheap. Most call centers are beginning to merge to the new technology (recording audio and screen capture) because of the great value it delivers to customer service.

[ctaylor]

Digital recorders are superior primarily for their ability to allow you to forward and share the call (in the form of a .wav or .wma format) with others in the organization and their ability to be archieved (because they save in a computer format). The audio quality is often superior as well.

The only advantage I would see with a micro cassette is cost...they cost less because they are not a flexible and ultimately as useful as their digital relatives.

I hope I was able to be of some assistance.

Colin Taylor
www. thetaylorreachgroup.com

[Genecist]

The differences between digital vs. cassette are akin to storing documents in a computer vs. a filing cabinet.