Customer Contact Call Recording Policy 2025
Introduction
This policy outlines Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s call recording process.
The purpose of call recording is to:
- Help identify staff training needs and to support effective training
- Improve the quality of the service and customer care
- Protect staff from aggressive, abusive or nuisance calls
Scope
Which calls will be recorded?
The telephone call recording system in operation can record all incoming calls to the Customer Contact Centre.
Calls are recorded whilst in the Help Line queue, the recording ends once the call is transferred to another queue or direct extension or if payment details begin.
Notification
All reasonable efforts must be made to communicate that calls will be monitored and recorded.
This will be communicated by:
- A pre-recorded message which will be played when a caller rings the Help Line prior to speaking to a Customer Contact Advisor
- Placing a notice on the Council’s Website
- Placing a notice on the Council’s Intranet & E Members
Customer Contact Management Team will be responsible for ensuring that the staff in Customer Contact are aware that the Help Line is subject to recording and monitoring.
Who will have access?
The recordings shall be stored securely on the Liberty Converse Supervisor Program and only authorised individuals in CCT will be able to listen to the recordings. Those authorised individuals will consist of the Manager, the Team Leader and Senior Customer Contact Advisers.
No other staff will be permitted to have this facility without permission of the Contact Manager.
Deletion of recordings
All call recordings will be automatically stored on the Liberty Converse Supervisor Program for 14 days, before being deleted. However, if there is a justified need to retain a specific recording for a longer period this may be reviewed in conjunction with the Council’s Communications, Customers & Information Manager. Information will not be retained for a longer period than necessary.
It will be the responsibility of the ICT department to delete the recordings from the Liberty Converse Supervisor Program. If recordings have been saved to a computer hard drive, it will be the responsibility of the individual who saved that recording to delete it from the hard drive.
Use of Recordings
Training and monitoring
A small number of calls each week will be listened to for standard quality monitoring purposes, these recordings will not be saved to computers.
Staff may be asked to listen to these calls as part of their one-to-one discussions with their line manager to identify good practice and any training needs. Their calls will not be played to any of their colleagues without their permission.
In the event of abusive or threatening behaviour, advisers are authorised to terminate the call after issuing a warning to withdraw their abusive or threatening behaviour.
Data Protection
The Data Protection Act allows persons access to information that we hold about them. This includes recorded telephone calls as recordings constitute the personal data of both the caller and the operator. We must ensure that the use of these recordings is fair and that we comply with the principles in the Data Protection Act.
A person may request a copy of a telephone conversation via a Subject Access Request which must be notified in writing to the Information Officer. If the recording has not been deleted in accordance with this policy, the recording may be provided to the requester.
Breach of Policy
Any breach of this policy may result in action being taken under the Council’s Disciplinary Code.