Call logging is the process of collecting, evaluating, and reporting technical and statistical data to derive useful meaning from it. The data can include the duration of the call, call origin, call destination, call start and call end times, type of network used, and other transmission details as may be required. Call logs are usually saved by equipment providers or telecommunications service as “call detail record,” and the process is automated. This ensures that the call logs are stored for later review or reference.
Why are call logs important?
Although call logs do not record the contents of the call itself, they can be used to provide useful information. Call logs offer a real-time macro view of how the telecommunications network is being utilized. The analyzed data can be used to minimize costs by prioritizing service to the busiest areas of the network. They also ensure the effective use and deployment of maintenance resources to enable a network to operate at ultimate efficiency.
Benefits of call logging
Call logging, especially in business, can be a great way of measuring the effectiveness of your phone calls. Missed calls may result in huge losses in sales, which no business wants.
Call logging allows businesses an opportunity to overcome losses in sales by tracking, recording, and optimizing the use of the available telephone system. There are many benefits that businesses experience with call logging software. This include:
Improving business efficiency
Call logging is an excellent way of finding out which employees are not contributing to team success when it comes to making sales through calls. With proper call logging software, you can easily track the number of incoming and outgoing calls made by members of your team.
Measuring the effectiveness and contribution of all of your staff is crucial if you need to improve business efficiency. By using call logs, you may find that some of your team members are way below the set number of calls made each day, thus giving you a chance to pull them up and address their performance issues.The information obtained from call logging is especially important for managers who want to achieve more out of their staff and identify performance gaps that may improve organizational productivity.
Retrieving lost calls
The use of a call logging system allows you to get access to a lost call report. This is very important in businesses where commissions on sales are concerned. Accessing a lost call report means that if you end up losing a call, you can retrieve it and get back in touch with the client to close deals and hopefully earn your commission. Call logging allows you to record and retrieve the contact details and information of the client; thereby, businesses do not lose out on potential customers and money.
Improving customer service
Call logging software allows a business to quickly establish various issues as to why calls are not going through. As you may already be aware, in business, missed calls mean missed business. Perhaps, it may be a result of staff shortage; thus, the number of incoming calls outweighs the number of available agents. By establishing this problem, you would be able to take the necessary precautions to resolve the matter and ensure that no calls are missed.
Another reason why calls may be lost may be due to phone lines being used and the next caller receiving the “busy tone” rather than a “call tone.” An effective call logging software can help to easily solve all these issues with a trunk utilization report. The trunk utilization report provides useful insights into your business phone line utilization. Through this, you will be able to recognize your network problems and maintain the required capacity in a given time.
The ability to identify issues with your phone calls allows you to fix any problems and all this eventually improves your overall customer service.
Call logs are beneficial for?
Health care, legal and financial offices:
Physicians, lawyers, and financial managers can use call logging software as a way to ensure legal, regulatory compliance and company wide guideline compliance, for example, Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA.
Independent contractors and Consultants:
Sole Proprietors can make use of call logs to effectively connect with customers by recording who they have been in communication with and providing insight into any missed calls from clients who did not leave a message. This ensures no missed business.
Sales and Customer service staff:
A well-maintained call log allows the sales and customer service team access to detailed records of calls, complaints, customer issues, and resolution methods to provide smoother customer service and improve overall performance.
Small business owners:
These can use call logs to resolve any customer disputes and keep a record of worker productivity to establish performance gaps in customer service.
Call centers:
Call logs enable call centers to work efficiently and effectively by providing useful metrics that can be used to forecast peak calling hours for staffing reasons as well as ensure that calls are being routed efficiently to agents.
Elements of a Manual Call Log
You can customize a manual call log template to meet your unique business requirements, and the list of metrics they can track is infinite. The elements of a good manual call log include:
- Date
- Time
- Employee name
- Name of the person dialed
- If the call was answered or a message was left
- The length or duration of the call
- Follow up notes
- Billable hours
- Issued resolution notes
Manual Call log templates may further capture more details regarding each call, for example, the cause for and the outcome of the call, and note initial information at the beginning of a client relationship. More elements can be added to the call log template to collect more information such as, whether the call was redirected to someone else for resolution and whether follow-up is necessary.
Call Log Templates
Ensure that your team accurately records all the information about your clients with our simple and easy to configure call log templates. Our templates are professionally designed to ensure that all your staff records the same information, and nothing is accidentally unnoticed. Download our free to use Templates for personal client call log tracking or save them as standard templates for all your client calls.
Frequently asked Questions
Calls logs are very useful to sales managers in that they ensure tracking of a team’s phone-based productivity to establish what is working and what needs to be enhanced. Additionally, call logs to provide historical data that managers may utilize while making major staffing decisions. This ensures that there are no too many agents during forecasted slow periods or fewer agents during peak hours.
Absolutely Yes! Sole proprietors usually have a lot to handle; therefore, it is easy to have important phone calls accidentally overlooked. A continuous review of call logs ensures that you have made all your scheduled calls, addressed any issues or complaints that came up during inbound calls, and basically serves as a way to jumpstart your memory in case you have forgotten any issue that was raised during a call.
Conclusion
Call logs are a great way for organizations, small business owners, and other entities to collect information on inbound and outgoing calls for record-keeping, future reference, resolving customer complaints and issues, and making important staffing issues. Several phone systems, if not all, include the feature with their service, but manual call log templates are a good alternative if you are not looking for phone service.
