Call Recording Policy

Purpose of this policy 

• Provide guidance to Total Synergy employees, partners and customers on the purpose of recording incoming and outgoing calls to Total Synergy 

• To govern the procedures and management of access and use of telephone recordings 

• To support effective training and delivery of our staff

• To enable Total Synergy to deal efficiently with internal or external complaints 

Policy summary  

This policy details Total Synergy’s approach to the recording of calls within the Sales, Customer Success and Accounts/Billing functions globally. It covers notification to customers and staff, customer requests not to have calls recorded, outlines the 

reasons that recordings can be accessed, and what measures are in place to ensure records are securely stored to ensure privacy is maintained. 

Notification to customers 

• Total Synergy will advise customers via the Integrated Voice Recording (IVR) that calls are recorded in the following manner:

• A message on the phone system that they will hear before they reach a Total Synergy employee stating — “Calls are recorded for quality and training purposes” 

• A notice on Total Synergy’s website (linked to from the ‘Contact us’ page) 
  
• In the case of outgoing calls, the staff member is to advise the customer at the commencement of the call that the call will be recorded 

What calls will be recorded?  

All incoming and outgoing phone calls via +61 2 8197 9000 for Australia and New Zealand and +44 20 3695 3777 for UK, Europe and North America will be recorded unless the customer declines. 

Customer declining call recording  

Where a customer requests not to have their call recorded, the Total Synergy staff taking the call will disable the call recording function in Total Synergy’s call centre software system. 

Reasons for recording calls 

• To identify staff training needs 

• To improve staff performance and consistency in information provided 

• To protect staff from abusive or nuisance calls

• Establishing the facts in the event of feedback or a complaint made either by a customer or a member of staff, to assist in resolving it

• To assist in quality control to identify any issues with processes, with a view to improving them 

• To confirm that calls have been accurately transcribed to Total Synergy’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or other corporate databases 

• Evidence for use in crime investigation or prevention purposes 

• To assist in the defence of legal claims 

Who has access to the recordings?  

Requests for access to recordings by internal staff must be made by way of CRM request to Customer Success Specialist Team Leader. Customers/callers have the right to listen to or have copies of recordings made of their own calls — requests for access need to be made by contacting the Total Synergy Customer Success team. Requests will be honoured within seven working days and sent to the requester’s nominated email address. 

Calls will be selected at random to be reviewed by the Total Synergy management team for training and quality assurance purposes. 

Reviewing calls for investigation or legal claim purposes  

Where call recordings need to be reviewed to assist with investigations or legal claims, approval to access the files is to be sought from the Head of Customer Success. The request to access customer call recording is to be completed and forwarded to the authorized officer for consideration. 

Storage of recordings  

Recordings constitute the personal data of both the caller and the operator. Therefore, they will be managed in such a way that the rights of data subjects (callers and operators) can be fulfilled, and all the obligations of Total Synergy are observed, as per Total Synergy’s Terms of Use guide. The recordings will be stored in Total Synergy’s call centre software system for a period of 12 months. Following this, the audio records are permanently erased. 

Suspected breaches or misuse of this policy 

Suspected breaches or misuse of this policy are to be reported to the Head of Customer Success and Manager, Human Resources. Alleged breaches of this policy shall be dealt with by the processes outlined for breaches of the Code of Conduct.  

Policy review  

This policy will be reviewed every two years or when significant changes to the call recording system take place.