Ever wonder what really happens during sales calls? Maybe you meet with your sales reps and ask how deals are progressing — but that doesn’t paint the full picture. Sales reps can easily misinterpret cues from prospects or go off message in their eagerness to close a deal.
With sales call recordings, you can find ways to improve your reps’ conversations with prospects, assess the probability of closing a deal, and more.
In this article, we’ll cover how sales call recording software can enhance your sales efforts and make oversight easier. We’ve also included some key features to look for (depending on your needs!) and a few tools to consider.
What is sales call recording software?
Sales call recording software is a technology that — at a minimum — records the call and stores the recording so it can be reviewed later. More advanced features include providing a call transcript, summaries, and follow-up items. The most sophisticated products use sentiment analysis and look for key phrases from a prospect to provide in-depth analytics for sales managers.
How sales call recording software works
This technology works with traditional phone lines or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems. Some call recording systems require you to hit a “record” button within the platform, while others will auto-join and record a call.
You don’t want your sales call recording software to exist in a vacuum. If you use Salesforce, for example, Salesforce VoIP integrations make recordings more powerful by syncing data from other systems you use.
Pro Tip: OpenPhone can log your call activity in Salesforce, allowing you to view all relevant call activity within your Salesforce pipeline. Read more about the OpenPhone Salesforce integration.
How to use call recordings in sales
Call recording features can be used in many ways, from ensuring the quality of customer service calls to training new reps. Specifically for sales, you might use call recording software for any of the following purposes:
1. Training and development
Even the most experienced salesperson will need training about your company and your products or services. Call recordings can give new reps real-world examples of successful sales pitches and objection handling.
You can also use call recordings to pinpoint reps who may need additional support. In such cases, you may consider call shadowing — where a junior rep listens in on calls with a more senior rep to learn from their expertise.
2. Quality assurance and compliance
Your sales reps need to explain your value proposition to prospects clearly. Call recordings can assure you that your sales reps stay on script — particularly if you’re rolling out new products or services or have updated your brand messaging. You can also make sure reps adhere to standard operating procedures, such as following up with the right information.
Call recordings also protect you if there’s a dispute. If a prospect becomes a customer and comes back later saying, “The sales rep promised me XYZ,” you can review the call recordings to determine exactly what was said.
3. Performance analysis
What do your best sales reps have in common? What tactics are they using? How do they overcome common objections?
You (or other sales managers) can analyze calls to identify the commonalities between your best-performing reps. You can also make strategy decisions based on sales call recordings, such as funneling deals to specific reps based on the deal’s size or industry.
4. Customer insights
You learn the most by talking directly to customers, including potential customers. You’ll hear about pain points and what’s most important to them. You may also get valuable insights into what your competitors are doing if your prospect brings them up (“I saw in a demo that this company can do XYZ”).
When customers consistently mention the same themes, you can tailor your products, services, and sales approaches to better meet their expectations.
5. Boost efficiency
If you rely only on what sales reps tell you, you can’t identify issues with sales techniques or provide targeted coaching. Call recordings let you provide specific feedback and monitor individual reps’ performance and progress over time.
Best practices to implement sales call recording
At first, sales reps may feel that call recordings are unnecessary or intrusive. You’ll want to communicate that recordings benefit the entire team. Part of effective sales collaboration is creating a culture of sharing ideas and wins, which you can do by reviewing sales calls together.
Reps also individually benefit since they no longer need to take notes during sales calls.
Of course, you get the most ROI from call recording features if you regularly review and analyze calls. Make it a habit to review calls from different reps, gather your findings, and determine the next steps based on what you uncover.
Is it legal to record sales calls?
Whether or not you can record a call without giving the other person on the line a heads up depends on the state. At the Federal level, call recordings require “one-party consent,” meaning one person on the call must consent to the recording.
However, several states have enacted “two-party consent,” which means both parties on the call must consent to the recording. Two-party consent is a bit of a misnomer: it doesn’t mean two people must consent to the call. It means all parties on the call must consent.
As a best practice, you should inform everyone on the call and get explicit consent by starting with a disclaimer such as, “We’ll record this call for quality and training purposes.”
Review state-by-state laws before implementing call recordings to be on the safe side.
Best sales call recording software
What you need from call recording software depends on the size of your team and what you hope to gain from recordings. Here are a few of the best options on the market.
1. OpenPhone: Best for small team collaboration
OpenPhone is a VoIP phone system built for small businesses that makes it easy to record calls. You can use Views to review all call recordings by date or sales rep and drill down into the calls you want to review. Plus, save time coaching your team with AI-generated call transcripts and summaries that give your team action items — so any of your reps can follow up faster.
All calls, texts, and voice messages with your leads are in a single thread so you can quickly see who on your team said what. And when you have an inbound phone number, you can use a shared inbox to ensure your team doesn’t miss incoming calls.
Key features of OpenPhone
- Automatic call recording on the Business plan
- AI-powered transcripts and summaries on recorded calls
- Integrations with CRM software, Slack, Zapier, and webhooks
OpenPhone pricing
OpenPhone has three pricing tiers:
- Starter: $15 per user per month includes voicemail transcription, on-demand call recordings, auto-replies, and more
- Business: $23 per user per month unlocks access to AI features, including message responses and call transcripts and summaries
- Enterprise: Custom price for priority support, audit logs, a dedicated account manager, and more
2. Gong: Best for large sales teams and enterprise companies
Gong uses AI technology to extract insights from your calls. For example, you can monitor reps’ usage of new messaging or search by keywords that come up repeatedly during calls.
Gong is not a phone system by itself; it connects with your phone system or web conferencing system of choice.
Key features of Gong
- Conversation intelligence looks for signals in recordings to predict closed deals
- Automated outreach engages with prospects
- Integrations with CRMs (like Salesforce or HubSpot), data enrichment platforms, and more
Gong pricing
Gong doesn’t have publicly available pricing, though it is based on the size of your team. You’ll need to contact their sales team for more information.
Gong’s pricing makes the product better suited for large sales teams or enterprise companies. However, smaller companies can also take advantage of Gong. OpenPhone has an integration with Gong. You may license OpenPhone across your entire company, including customer support and other departments, but only license Gong seats for your sales team.
3. LiveAgent: Best for omnichannel interactions
Your business model may rely on your sales reps fielding a lot of incoming inquiries — and not just via phone calls. Ecommerce or B2C companies, in particular, may be answering a lot of pre-sales questions via calls, social platforms, chat, and more.
LiveAgent allows you to connect all of these channels in a single platform. However, there is no native SMS integration, so if you need business texting, LiveAgent may not be a good option.
Key features of LiveAgent
- Customers can request callbacks
- AI Answer Assistant generates polished replies to customer inquiries based on your data
- Integrations with tools like Shopify, Mailchimp, and Pipedrive
LiveAgent pricing
- Small: $9 per agent per month includes features like three email accounts and a knowledge base but does not include call recordings
- Medium: $29 per agent per month to access call recordings, AI Answer Assistant, and more
- Large: $49 per agent per month with higher limits on knowledge bases, event rules, SLA rules, and more
- Enterprise: $69 per agent per month comes with a senior account manager, priority support, and more
Small, Medium, and Large plans have additional fees for adding communication channels such as Twitter and Facebook, and other add-on charges. Enterprise plans include these add-ons in the pricing.
What to look for in a sales call recording tool
As you explore your options for a sales recording tool, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- If you’re using a CRM or client management software, integration is a must. You don’t want to waste time by reviewing two separate systems.
- AI capabilities (call transcriptions, summaries, and action items) have become table stakes.
- Team performance analytics give you insights without reviewing every call.
- Call data should be secure and meet privacy and compliance requirements for your industry.
The easier you can search through your call recordings, the better. If you have a lot of sales reps, you want functionality that can look for specific trends, phrases, or key things your prospects are saying.
Add sales call recording software to your tech stack
An effective sales cycle doesn’t have to be trial and error. With sales call recording software, you can learn from the best and coach reps who need improvement. You can also make the sales process easier by integrating with your CRM and automatically generating action items based on the call.
OpenPhone is an ideal business solution for sales teams, providing call recordings, transcripts, summaries, and more.
To check out OpenPhone, sign up for a free seven-day trial.
