33Employers who employ people at call centers want to be sure their employees are doing a good job, but employees don't want their every trip to the water cooler, rest room or occasional snack machine visit logged. Today you need to make sure your people are properly trained, your customer service is the best it can be. That's the essential conflict of call center monitoring of employees.
New technologies evolve everyday making it easier for employers to monitor aspects of their employees' performance, on telephones, computer terminals, through electronic means and voice mail, and when employees are using the Internet. Such monitoring is mostly unregulated. Therefore, unless company policy specifically states otherwise (and even this is not assured), your employer or call center manager may listen, watch and read most of the workplace communications.
A majority of employers monitor their employees according to recent surveys. They are motivated by anxiety over litigation and the increasing role that electronic evidence plays in lawsuits and government agency investigations.
E-Discovery (electronic evidence collection and back-up) Laws a Boon for Lawyers.
"New regulations governing the storage and management of electronic data that might be needed in federal court actions have an increasing number of organizations turning to outside counsel for help, according to a new study.
An annual survey about litigation matters asked 303 corporate lawyers about the impact of the e-discovery law that went into effect in the last couple of years. The e-discovery law is an amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure related to finding and managing electronically stored information that might be relevant in a legal dispute in federal or other courts.
Issues facing the issues of discovering, producing and admitting "electronically stored information" including (ESI Electronic Share Information) in your business include e-mail, instant messaging chats, Microsoft Office files, accounting databases, CAD/CAM files, Web sites, and any other electronically-stored information like sound files collected during a Predictive dialer conversation, which could be relevant evidence in a law suit.
80% of employers reveal their call and other monitoring practices to employees and customers. Most call center greets you with the phrase “This call maybe monitored for quality assurance” on most inbound calls. The taped message is so common that many callers might take for granted that no one is ever listening, let alone taking notes. But they might be wrong, especially with companies that go the extra mile for customer service.Any party with an existing business link or new customers may utilize call monitoring, however, always is certain to confirm all Federal and State laws once again for your related set of laws. Always seek legal council in your area or areas you intend to market in for any clarification or issues you may face. OPC Marketing is not a legal council firm and does not give any legal advice. Use of this page constitutes that agreement.
CALL 800-859 -5924 or 972-267-3279. Contact OPC.
Can sales calls both inbound and outbound be monitored?
Make sure your legal council finds out more in your particular area. We are working on a comprehensive and complete discussion of these issues and will post them in the near future. Please bookmark this page and check back often.
Can my employer listen to my phone calls at work?
In most instances, yes. For example, employers may monitor calls with clients or customers for reasons of quality control. However, when the parties to the call are all in California, state law requires that they be informed that the conversation is recorded or monitored by either putting a beep tone on the line or playing a recorded message. (California Public Utilities Commission General Order 107-B, www.cpuc.ca.gov/Published/Graphics/567.pdf) Not every business is aware of this requirement, so your calls might still be monitored without a warning. Federal law, which regulates phone calls with persons outside the state, does allow unannounced monitoring for business-related calls. (See Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC 2510, et. seq., www.law.cornell.edu/uscode.) An important exception is made for personal calls. Under federal case law, when an employer realizes the call is personal, he or she must immediately stop monitoring the call. (Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co., 704 F.2d 577, 583 (11th Cir. 1983)) However, when employees are told not to make personal calls from specified business phones, the employee then takes the risk that calls on those phones may be monitored.
Privacy Tip: The best way to ensure the privacy of your personal calls made at work is to use your own mobile phone, a pay phone, or a separate phone designated by your employer for personal calls.
If I wear a headset, are my conversations with co-workers subject to monitoring?
Yes. The conversations you have with co-workers are subject to monitoring by your employer in the same way that your conversations with clients or customers are. If you wear a headset, you should use the same care you would if you were talking to a customer or client on the phone. Some headsets have "mute" buttons which allow you to turn off the transmitter when you are not using the telephone.
Can my employer obtain a record of my phone calls?
Yes. Telephone numbers dialed from phone extensions can be recorded by a device called a pen register. It allows the employer to see a list of phone numbers dialed by your extension and the length of each call. This information may be used to evaluate the amount of time spent by employees with clients.
Employers often use pen registers to monitor employees with jobs in which telephones are used extensively. Frequently, employees are concerned that the information gathered from the pen register is unfairly used to evaluate their efficiency with clients without consideration of the quality of service.
Computer Monitoring
If you have a computer terminal at your job, it may be your employer's window into your workspace. There are several types of computer monitoring.
1. Employers can use computer software that enables them to see what is on the screen or stored in the employees' computer terminals and hard disks. Employers can monitor Internet usage such as web-surfing and electronic mail.
People involved in intensive word-processing and data entry jobs may be subject to keystroke monitoring. Such system tells the manager how many keystrokes per hour each employee is performing. It also may inform employees if they are above or below the standard number of keystrokes expected. Keystroke monitoring has been linked with health problems including stress disabilities and physical problems like carpal tunnel syndrome.
2. Another computer monitoring technique allows employers to keep track of the amount of time an employee spends away from the computer or idle time at the terminal.
Is my employer allowed to see what is on my terminal while I am working?
Generally, yes. Since the employer owns the computer network and the terminals, he or she is free to use them to monitor employees. Employees are given some protection from computer and other forms of electronic monitoring under certain circumstances. Union contracts, for example, may limit the employer's right to monitor. Also, public sector employees may have some minimal rights under the United States Constitution, in particular the Fourth Amendment which safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure.
There may be some additional rights for employees in California given specific statutes of that state. See the paper by Los Angeles attorneys John Caragozian and Donald Warner, Jr., titled "Privacy Rights of Employees Using Workplace Computers in California," published in 2000.
How can I tell if I am being monitored at my terminal?
Most computer monitoring equipment allows employers to monitor without the employees' knowledge. However, some employers do notify employees that monitoring takes place. This information may be communicated in memos, employee handbooks, union contracts, at meetings or on a sticker attached to the computer.
In most cases, employees find out about computer monitoring during a performance evaluation when the information collected is used to evaluate the employee's work.CALL 800-859 -5924 or 972-267-3279. Contact OPC Marketing.
Is electronic mail private? What about voice mail?
In most cases, no. If an electronic mail (e-mail) system is used at a company, the employer owns it and is allowed to review its contents. Messages sent within the company as well as those that are sent from your terminal to another company or from another company to you can be subject to monitoring by your employer. This includes web-based email accounts such as Yahoo® and Hotmail® as well as instant messages. The same holds true for voice mail systems. In general, employees should not assume that these activities are not being monitored and are private. Several workplace privacy court cases have been decided in the employer's favor. See for example:
* Bourke v. Nissan
* Smyth v. Pillsbury
* Shoars v. Epson
When I delete messages from my terminal, are they still in the system?
Yes. Electronic and voice mail systems retain messages in memory even after they have been deleted. Although it appears they are erased, they are often permanently "backed up" on magnetic tape, along with other important data from the computer system.
My employer's electronic mail system has an option for marking messages as "private." Are those messages protected?
In most cases, no. Many electronic mail systems have this option, but it does not guarantee your messages are kept confidential. An exception is when an employer's written electronic mail policy states that messages marked "private" are kept confidential. Even in this situation, however, there may be exceptions. (See Smyth v. Pillsbury.)
Is there ever a circumstance in which my messages are private?
Some employers use encryption to protect the privacy of their employees' electronic mail. Encryption involves scrambling the message at the sender's terminal, then unscrambling the message at the terminal of the receiver. This ensures the message is read only by the sender and his or her intended recipient. While this system prevents co-workers and industrial "spies" from reading your electronic mail, your employer may still have access to the unscrambled messages.
Workplace Privacy Protections
What about my employer's promises regarding e-mail and other workplace privacy issues. Are they legally binding?
Not necessarily. Usually, when an employer states a policy regarding any issue in the workplace, including privacy issues, that policy is legally binding. Policies can be communicated in various ways: through employee handbooks, via memos, and in union contracts. For example, if an employer explicitly states that employees will be notified when telephone monitoring takes place, the employer generally must honor that policy. There are usually exceptions for investigations of wrong-doing. If you are not already aware of your employer's workplace privacy policies, it is a good idea to become informed.
In Smyth v. Pillsbury, the employee's termination was upheld by the court, even though the company had a policy of allowing e-mail use for personal communications. In this case, the employee had sent messages to co-workers that were deemed highly inappropriate for workplace communications. (Smyth v. Pillsbury, C.A. NO. 95-5712, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Jan.18, 1996, Decided, Jan. 23, 1996, Filed. )
Are there any laws that deal with workplace privacy?
Currently there are very few laws regulating employee monitoring. If you are concerned about this issue, contact your federal legislators, especially the members of the House and Senate Labor committees in Congress. (See PRC Fact Sheet 18 "Privacy in Cyberspace".)
Are there organizations that assist employees regarding workplace privacy?
Yes. There are several groups that are actively involved in workplace monitoring issues and that advocate stronger government regulation of employee monitoring activities.
National Work Rights Institute
166 Wall St.
Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 683-0313
Web: www.workrights.org
9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women
231 W. Wisconsin Ave. No. 900
Milwaukee, WI 53203
(414) 274-0925
Hotline (800) 522-0925
Web: www.9to5.org
Workplace Fairness
www.workplacefairness.org
Affiliated with the National Employment Lawyers Association, www.nela.org
American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004-2400
(212) 549-2500
Publications Ordering: 1-800-775-ACLU (2258)
Web: www.aclu.org
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also has information related to workplace privacy issues that are not discussed in this fact sheet. Some of the issues of growing concern involve psychological testing, drug testing, polygraph or lie-detector testing and off-the-job surveillance of employees. Visit the ACLU's Web site.
Labor groups are taking a stronger interest in workplace monitoring. If your union represents employees' interests regarding workplace monitoring, please contact the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
If you start recording and monitoring those calls with OPC Marketing’s technology’s to see how your employees are really performing. Ready to get an earful? Hearing sales reps who mumble, used bad English, and might be inept or rude. You might realize your team needs an intervention. They may have never been taught or heard examples of how to make a great call. Do you do any training?
Some companies hire professional eavesdroppers (sound byte monitors) from third party services -- to do further monitoring. After all a neutral third party critiquing the conversations is unbiased. On top of bad grammar, you’ll hear reps that miss sales opportunities to cross sell and up sell and lack basic knowledge about your product or service. If a potential customer has a bad call with your company, "98% of them just will hang up and go elsewhere." It is a bigger problem than most managers who use a call center may know about.
Call center Phone reps are a fact of doing business, and in many cases represent the first contact a customer has with your company. First impressions are everything.
In a jumbled world where one company's product is as nearly identical to another's, quality customer service is often the deciding factor for most customers. But do you really know how your operators are behaving? Hiring a professional call monitoring service or developing your own call monitoring procedure is a good way to find out. The best call centers have no plan or agenda other than making sure agents are providing excellent service.
Roughly 2% of customer calls are monitored by an outside listening group, according to experts, and all of it's done without a monitor ever stepping foot inside a client's office.
Some review recordings after the fact, even fewer monitor live calls. Software and hardware is set up to record the phone line and some can capture to video what's on an operator's computer screen during a call. To access the digital files, outside monitors can work anywhere, as long as they have an Internet connection even on another continent, many offshore companies have been setup to listen to calls cheaply. The sheer time it takes to go through calls can add up to quite a feat especially with large call centers.
Listen to a four-minute phone call, and there's a good chance you'll find loads of glaring mistakes, call monitors have heard it all -- from drunk callers serenading agents to reps belching in midcall (and not excusing themselves).
Call monitoring also gets a daily dose of domestic life after all you are intruding into family life, barking dogs, screaming kids, and heated arguments -- it all comes through over the receiver. Some calls take on a soap-opera quality, with agents and customers flirting and exchanging phone numbers.
Companies may sign an ongoing contract with an outside monitor, or arrange a one-time audit. After collecting and evaluating calls, monitors help clients fine-tune their operations.
Call monitoring can teach employees proper phone etiquette. Show them how to promote your companies reputation and how to overcome sales obstacles. Call monitoring strategies work:
In as little as six months after beginning the monitoring, staffers will speak more clearly, are more polite, and know how to convert a phone call into a face-to-face meeting or an over the line close. "Nothing is perfection But it's can be significantly improved with practice and critique." No one knows what they sound like unless someone show them.
All this snooping doesn't come cheap; it takes a lot of human investment in the process. Nothing comes cheap in the beginning but in the long run there isn’t a price you can put on customer loyalty is there? Monthly costs depend on how many calls are monitored the length of each call, and the complexity of the analysis to develop successful call outcomes.
Outside auditing of calls costs around $1,400 a month for a monitor to critique 10 calls for 14 agents.
It could cost as much as $100,000 in software and equipment to do the monitoring in-house. Plus, a monitor can store recordings and evaluations in a database, making it a snap to track an agent's performance over time.
Every day when you log onto your call monitoring system to listen to audio files of recent calls, you’ll find one that's a standout; e-mail a copy or link where your staff can play it. Save some of the duds, too, and uses them for training. Call recording technology also will allow you to assign different toll-free or local numbers to each ad campaign, so you can track which ones generate the most calls.
You also can track the success of a promotional flier or radio and TV spots about a sales event.
You will be able to see how many calls came in because of the flier, and you can also listen to how his agents handled them. Did they talk up the event or treat it like just another call?
If your staff hyped the sale they will land appointments. The even better news: the reputation of call centers like yours will get a boost. "It's not just about selling your product or service.” "It's about selling the business and most importantly how well you take care of people." Contact OPC.
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DOWNLOAD THE SPITFIRE® CALL MONITORING SOLUTION BROCHURE .PDF On a very basic level, OPC’s SpitFire® Dialers can monitor any call. OPC's optional SO-24 Silent Service Observation unit allows supervisors to monitor, train, motivate, even assist sales personnel, customer service staff or telemarketing representatives without disrupting the activity at their work station. Add Silent Observation to your OPC's Dialer System. Stations are monitored silently, a supervisor may quickly enter the conversation. An optional cassette recorder output permits selective recording by simply dialing a number. Alternatively, all monitored conversations may be recorded. Specifications [Download] This Call Monitor document is a .PDF and is viewable in Acrobat Reader. You can download and install this free software from Adobe Acrobat reader [Download]. |
Add Silent Service Observation to Any Phone System
Now you can monitor, train, motivate, even assist your personnel or customer service staff without disrupting the activity at their work station.
Each SO-24A Service Observation Unit lets you access 24 stations (or 48 with 2 units) or phone lines by dialing a two-digit code from any supervisory phone. Install additional SO-24A's for larger installations.
Station being monitored hears nothing; however, a supervisor can quickly enter the conversation by dialing a '*'. A cassette recorder output permits selective recording by simply dialing a '9'.
CALL 800-859 -5924 or 972-267-3279. Contact OPC Marketing.
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