Call recording

Call recording is a per-agent setting, and it's yours to control. This page covers what happens when it's on, and what's worth considering before you turn it on.

The setting

Each agent's Call Settings has a Record call switch, in the audio section. It's per agent, so you can record your inbound support line and not your outbound prospecting, or the reverse.

When recording is on:

• The recording appears with the call in Conversations, with a player for listening back.
• A link to it is included when ClearTalk sends call data to your system, so it can land in your CRM alongside the rest of the call.
• If you have payload encryption enabled, the link points at the provider's storage rather than ClearTalk's, so the audio never passes through our storage layer.

Why teams record

Recordings are the fastest way to make an agent better. Reading a transcript tells you what was said; hearing the call tells you where the caller hesitated, talked over the agent, or gave up. Recording also settles disputes about what was agreed, and is often required in regulated industries.

It's also worth knowing you don't need audio to review conversations — every call gets a transcript, an AI summary, and a result whether or not you record. If you want the coaching value without holding audio, transcripts alone will get you most of the way.

Disclosure

In the US, some states are satisfied if one party to the call knows it's being recorded — which, if you're recording, is you. Around a dozen states instead require everyone on the call to consent, including California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Calls that cross state lines can be subject to the stricter of the two states' rules, which in practice means a business calling nationwide is usually best served by assuming all-party consent applies. Many other countries have their own requirements again.

The short version: if you record, disclosing it is the safe default, and in a fair number of places it's the required one.

How to disclose it

ClearTalk doesn't announce recording for you — that stays your decision, and the wording should be yours. If you do want to disclose, there are two easy places to do it:

In the agent's opening line. The simplest approach — fold it into the greeting the agent already gives:

"Hi, this is Alex from Northside Dental. This call is recorded for quality and training — how can I help?"

As the first step of a pathway. If the agent runs one, put it in the first step, so it's part of the map and reviewable rather than buried in a settings field. If you need the caller to actively agree rather than simply be told, add a branch: agree → continue, decline → hand off to a person on an unrecorded line, or continue with recording switched off for that route.

Whichever you pick, keep it short and matter-of-fact:

A one-line disclosure barely registers with callers. A long legalistic one makes people wary before the conversation has started.

Practical housekeeping

• Decide who can listen. Recordings can include payment details, health information, and personal data. Team members' access follows their role, so review who has it — and consider two-factor authentication for accounts that can reach recordings.
• Be consistent per agent. Recording some calls on a line and not others makes the disclosure harder to get right, and makes the archive less useful.
• Know what you're storing. If your agents handle health information, recordings are part of what your compliance posture has to cover. See payload encryption on the Security page for the outbound side.
• Revisit it. Turning recording on for a month while you tune a new agent, then off again, is a perfectly reasonable pattern.