Call recording

Call recording is the feature that saves the audio of a phone call to a file you can play back later. In a contact center it serves a few purposes at once: managers review calls to coach agents, quality teams check that scripts are followed, and recordings act as a record if there is ever a dispute about what was said. VICIdial can record automatically on every call or only when someone chooses to.

Recording can be triggered in different ways. The simplest is to record all calls on a campaign from the moment they connect. You can also leave it off by default and let agents start a recording mid-call with On-demand recording, which is handy when you only need to keep certain conversations. Either way, each finished recording is saved as a file linked to the call so you can find it again.

Choices that affect quality and law

How a recording sounds depends on a couple of settings. The Recording format (WAV/MP3) decides the file type and size, and Stereo recording keeps the agent and the lead on separate channels so they are easier to tell apart. There is also a small Recording delay at the start of some recordings, which is worth knowing about if the first second of audio seems to be missing.

Recording carries legal weight, so it is not just a technical setting. Many places require Two-party consent, meaning you must tell the other person they are being recorded. You also need a plan for how long files are kept, which is your Recording retention policy, and a way to pause recording around sensitive moments such as taking a card number with PCI pause. Decide these rules before you turn recording on across a campaign.

One thing teams underestimate is storage. Recording every call on a busy campaign adds up to a surprising amount of audio over a few months, and those files have to live somewhere. Plan for the disk space up front, and tie it to your retention rules so old recordings are cleared on schedule rather than piling up forever. Recording all calls is the safe default for compliance and coaching, but if storage is tight, recording selectively on demand is a reasonable middle ground. Either way, decide the policy deliberately instead of letting it happen by accident, because changing it later means dealing with a backlog of files under whatever rules were in force when they were made.