Branch VoIP Recording - It’s NICE, really!
Ever been put on hold while calling your bank, or another customer line? A mechanical or sweet voice comes on and says "your call is being monitored for compliance and/or training purposes". Yeah, they do record our calls. Government and industry regulations, risk management issues, corporate governance, and sometimes training requirements prompt organizations to be diligent about recording conversations. (Or, at least that’s what they claim, though I’ve not seen my bank use such recordings anytime to provide better service - they make me go through my service request every time I get my call put on hold for 20 minutes and I hang up to call again:-|).
But let’s get back to talking technology.
In one of the previous blogs with Mike Wood, we discussed complementary approaches to cloud computing involving the branch. The premise was to have a lightweight, local instantiation of the application footprint in the branch that would provide a degree of survivability, performance and perhaps in some cases, additional security, perceived or otherwise. It combines the best approaches of a centralized model and a distributed model, adopting a hybrid model.
One such application involves Branch VoIP recording. Nothing fancy, but very useful. This can be a cloud based application, or it could involve the branch where the customer support personal or local staff is located.
Sometime back, I hosted a panel discussion involving NICE, an Israel-based "well-established company that started more than 20 years ago". What’s more relevant to us is NICE has developed a branch recording application and put some effort in integrating it with the Integrated Services Router on the Application Extension Platform.
Nadav Doran from NICE came all the way from Israel to Orlando, Florida to participate in this panel discussion. It was very lively, and we did a balancing act on a small stage with three bar stools, but it was totally worth it.
This is another instance of a server-based application that has been brought onto the router to reduce operational complexity and save on cost. The local hard disk on the router makes voice recordings possible in the branch. Now, recording is just one part. You can use WAN Optimization, with WAAS, or perhaps NCE, to archive these calls to the Datacenter during off peak hours. Based on the hard disk capacity it can record close to a month of calls, if not more, bells n’ whistles included.
Sweet. Or should I say, NICE, isn’t it?
Posted by Shashi Kiran at 12:00AM PST
Craig Smythe Nov 18, 2009
This is all very NICE
I want to ask, has anyone had a problem after they have integrated a NICE SMB VoIP recording solution and they are only recording the customer side of the conversation? I suspect that there is an RSPAN issue that is preventing the recorder from receiving the agent side RTP packets. Can anyone direct me as to where to begin looking for the problem?