HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE RECORDS YOUR CALLS

Have you ever had a phone conversation that you later wished you had recorded? Perhaps someone you spoke with in customer services was rude to you or maybe you were promised something you never received. If you had the conversation recorded, you could have easily proven your point with conviction rather than having to rely on hearsay. We're familiar with the "Calls may be monitored" greeting we hear when calling a business but that doesn't insure they will be polite all the time. Maybe it's time we "monitor" our own calls.

Actually there are a myriad of reasons you may want to record the phone calls you make. For example, if I were to conduct a phone interview, I could see myself telling that person I am recording the conversation to insure accuracy as it would help me to remember exactly what was said. For whatever reason you may want to record your phone conversations, you should know that there are products available that can turn your computer into an advanced telephony recorder. Using a computer to record phone conversations is far more efficient than trying to use some kind of tape recorder. For starters, you are limited only by the size of your hard drive and not by the limited capacities of cassette tapes.

According to NCH Software that carries a variety of telephony recording products, Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. Check out their Trillium USB Call Recording Adapter. The one by three inch device connects to your phone via the handset. Unplug the handset cord from the phone and plug it into the adapter which plugs back into the phone. Then plug the USB connector into a PC or Macintosh USB port and that's it. No further power connection is needed.

The other component is their TRx Phone Recorder software. There's a separate version for Windows or Mac. Installation is simple enough and now you're ready to record. Just click on the Record button to start and stop recording. The Hold button pauses and resumes the recording.

You can elect to save the conversations into a wave or mp3 file. From there, you can use any available sound editor to enhance and edit the audio as you would any other audio file. The TRx software offers some additional preferences and functions that make the recording easy to do. You can optionally have the TRx software play a pre-recorded announcement file at the beginning and the end of the recording session. For example, the starting announcement might say "Calls are being recorded to ensure the best possible customer service" and say "Thank you for your business" when the recording ends.

Another option lets you play music when you click the Hold button. Actually you can play any audio file you want so you may choose to let the caller hear some kind of sales promotion pitch while they wait for you to return to the phone. The TRx software lets you pre-load up to three different Hold files from which you can select before they are placed on Hold.

TRx displays when each call is made along with its time and date. You can select any of these files to play by simply clicking on them. A log file is also kept for further detail. The log is nice to have especially if you decide to delete the actual recording files. That way, you still have a record of the calls you made and received without having to keep the actual audio files stored. There's also a feature that lets you name the files so that you can search for them later on.

Other options let you decide how long TRx keeps the files before they are automatically deleted, and a special audio quality control regulates the volume of both the incoming and outgoing conversations so that the level of both are balanced. That way one side of the conversation doesn't overpower the other.

The TRx Personal Call Recorder Home User sells for $49.20 and the Professional version that's licensed for a business installation goes for $88.40. You must specify either the Windows or Macintosh version. The Call Recording Adapter (TRI Handset with USB) goes for $119.50.

Have grandma and grandpa call from far away to recant some wonderful family stories. Now you can preserve them forever and pass on to the next generation.


www.nchsoftware.com
 

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