Can you stop customers from recording conversations with your agents, then posting those chats online? Legal experts weigh in.
With situations, such as technicians sleeping on customers couches, popping up on YouTube, and customer rants filtering through Facebook, contact centers may see some of their dark sides appear online.
It’s still a gray area of the law, but there are ways to work with or around the growing issue.
Laws vary by state on how many parties must know if a conversation is being recorded and where that can happen (on the phone, in an office, in a public area, etc.), says David Coursey, author of Slimed Online: How to Get Your Reputation Back in Spite of Google.
Until there’s a final ruling, contact centers want to give agents guidelines on what to do if they think they’re being recorded:
- Follow a script (that’s been looked over by legal counsel and human resources) very closely to respond to customers
- Only share a first name, and
- End the conversation if the customer becomes aggressive, vulgar or refuses to stop recording.
