Most importantly, the advent of technology has revolutionized the way businesses can attract and connect with their customers despite being oceans away. Business transactions can now happen through communication with the internet and now with a more global reach, it is to be expected that our communication lines would receive more customer engagement calling for a greater need to track them and in this case, utilizing a Call Logs can help you with that.

Call Logs: What are They?

Especially if your business involves the use of telecommunication, it would be vital that you have a call logging system in your business operating model. An oversimplified definition of a call log oftentimes referred to as call monitoring, is that it records daily calls made to your company and by your company. A lengthier and a more comprehensive definition as provided by Wikipedia is that it “is the collection, evaluation, and reporting of technical and statistical data” from calls made which you can extract meaningful and relevant information from that you might have forgotten and later review.

For reference, it functions the same way as time logs do except a call log records and keeps track of calls. You may also see log sheet templates if you’re interested in learning more about log sheets in general. It lists over 50 types of log sheet samples. Some other types of log sheets are: Mileage Logs, Parent Contact Logs, and Workout Logs.

Call Logs: What is Inside It?

Regardless of how your company would want to structure the call logs, a typical Call Log includes all of the following relevant information such as:

Oftentimes, companies would require the context of what the call was about. You may choose to briefly indicate the reason for the call and at least the important points of what transpired during the call the way you would when writing meeting minutes that do not necessarily enumerate everything.. To ensure that you don’t forget the person who you are calling, you may also provide additional contact information such as company’s profile, emails or their business’ contact number. 

For a sales call log, it would be best to record as well the budget agreed upon or any additional requests made within the sales call. 

Call Logs: Why Do You Need It?

If your company deals with an especially great deal of phone calls, it would be best for the company’s performance and productivity to comprehensively log these calls. To expound more on the importance of incorporating a call logging system in your business, we provide 10 advantages to having a recording ingoing and outgoing calls made in your company. Spoiler alert: It mostly has to do with the supplemental information of the call transaction that you attach to the entry.

1. It improves Employee/Customer relationship.

If you’re wondering how a simple record of calls made by your company and calls directed to your company can improve your relationships with customers, potential customers and your partnered clients, it actually has a lot to do with the notes you provide for every call made. Having a call log allows you to look through past interactions and assuming that you do provide these little notes in your call log, the past record should give you an additional topic to discuss besides purely business. Familiarity produces an increased attraction and comfortability making our customers feel that they could trust our business or our services that we of course aim for and this ultimately has potential to enhance customer relations and increase our company’s efficiency.

2. It determines strengths and weaknesses.

A recording of the highlights during a call would include the issues that the customer and the client had or something that you delivered that they were satisfied with. Having an idea of which strategies performed by the employees allows those with administrative and managerial roles the opportunity to acknowledge their initiatives and hard work and reward them with the appropriate and satisfying incentives. On the other hand, knowing which approaches by your employees or areas in your business model that do not seem to be producing the desired results allows the formulation of ways to overcome these hurdles and improve strategies. It will also be easier to determine which employees are in need of on-on-one coaching to better their performance. 

3. It can redeem important data.

Despite having a record of the customer’s information and the main points of discussion during the exchange, it cannot be helped to face situations wherein you might miss out on these details. With a call log in your arsenal, you may be able to overcome these situations and perhaps avoid encountering similar occurrences in the future. 

4. It clarifies information.

As previously mentioned, you won’t have every exchange ingrained in your memory and when a situation arises that calls for backtracking, a call log should be able to serve as your refresher thus improving your performance in the sense that you have the accurate information with you to communicate with the customer and the client.

5. It tracks missed calls and follow-up actions.

Having indicated the type of call and whether it’s a received or a missed one allows you to retrieve them as each call especially in the business industry could be a potential client and to miss it would be losing on a potential partnership, a potential sale and the chance to generate profit. Having indicated this missed call on your log would give you a chance to get back in touch with that individual and hopefully get a business deal out of them or at least give them a chance to be heard. However, it is strongly encouraged to not miss a call in the first place. 

A call log can also serve as a reminder for you to conduct that follow-up call as an additional request made by your customer or client. This would give the other party an impression of your work ethic making them rely on you more.

6. It offers conflict resolutions.

A lot of events can follow after even an innocent mistake such as forgetting customer information and the details that happened during the call. While this is of course avoidable, it cannot be helped if it does occur as working in a company especially one that banks on communication and customer services can bring forth an intense atmosphere. If the reasons for the argument can be traced back to the details of the call, then keeping a record of the necessary information can help resolve the disagreement. 

7. It improves business efficiency.

As previously stated, a call log has the ability to distinguish which employees are performing well and bringing in good results and which employees are disrupting the business’ progress. When you are able to determine which employees are from the latter category, immediate reinforcements or training can be done to help them improve. A call log also serves as a reliable tool for you to evaluate the company’s customer call services and when you have that monitored as well, this should naturally reflect in the overall efficiency of the business operations.  

8. It fosters an active learning environment.

In businesses, it is important to create a space that encourages self-improvement and constructive criticism. With a call log determining which aspects of the business need improving and which employees could be in need of additional coaching as well as the company’s overall strengths and weaknesses, it follows that these should be evaluated and the necessary actions be taken. This practice would improve the work environment’s atmosphere and ultimately develop a culture of learning and the best ways to communicate judgments. 

9. It controls the budget intended for calls.

A call log would ensure that employees maximize their outgoing calls when they are aware that their call-related activities are tracked. This would allow for the company to stay within the budget allocated for outbound calls and they could monitor as well the duration of these interactions and the calls made on a daily and monthly basis. Also, a call log monitors the average time for a transaction to be complete which could serve as basis for how effective your employee’s performance can be. 

10. It enhances the business’ quality of service.

Now that you are equipped with the necessary information from your recorded calls or that you are well aware of your performance and the ways in which you can constantly improve it, you should now be able to produce better customer and client services. This, in turn, should improve customer satisfaction and a satisfied client can enable referrals and loyalty to your company. 

Call Logs: How to Create an Effective Call Log

Logging calls can sometimes be an exhausting work especially because it requires a certain degree of meticulousness but isn’t that the case for most things that can help you improve? However, what we can do is provide you with ways through which you can apply to produce an effective call log report.

Detailed Contact Information. Include detailed information of your customers and clients to ensure a better and an engaging exchange should there be a next time. This should guarantee their satisfaction on your performance.Relevant Information. An excellent call log should be able to provide only the relevant information with regards to the exchange. Regardless if these additional comments can be lengthy, for as long as you deem it necessary that it is mentioned and you write it in a way that is easily understandable, then it should belong to the call log sheet.Template Uniformity. Ensure a uniformed call log template is distributed to all of the company’s employees. Orient them of the business’ guidelines in relation to the call log sheets and make sure that the employees all have it completely understood.Be Organized and Neat. An effective call log is one that is neat and organized. Craft an outline on a separate space where you can initially record the details that transpired during the call.  In this space, you may choose to be messy and incoherent. Although  once finished, you may transfer it to the final call log sheet. While this will ensure neatness that makes the the log sheet more pleasing to the eyes and simple in its details, we acknowledge it can add require added effort which you may choose to not apply.

FAQs

How Do I Create a Call Log?

Your company should be able to provide a call log template to ensure uniformity in the entries. If not, you may make use of the call log samples we have provided. Call log formats depend on the kinds of information your business is interested in tracking however, call logs generally include the following elements:

  • Date and time the call was made and/or received including if it’s either an ingoing call, an outgoing call, or a missed call. 
  • People involved in the call (ie., employee name and name of the other party)
  • Duration of the call 

How do I see my Call Log?

Fortunately for mobile phone users, all the calls made and received using our devices including the duration and the time the call started and ended are immediately listed. You may be able to view these in your device’s Phone apps.

What is the meaning of a Call Log?

To reiterate, a call log records inbound and outbound calls that details the information about the call such as parties involved, the length duration of the call, reasons for the interaction as well as additional comments about the call that could include a request for a follow-up call to be made.