Phone recording can be classified into two varieties. Phone recording sometimes means recording everything on the headset audio, both during calls and between calls.  This offers an additional insight about a call that just took place, as well as agents' perceptions of their jobs and employers.  Other phone recording systems record only the call audio and not idle conversions with coworkers in between calls.  There are some other phones recording devices, which can work in either mode, allowing the call center management to decide which is appropriate for their center.

Phone recording technology has seen a sea change from the analog recording devices (of the 1960's) to the digital recording devices of the 1990's.The enhanced research abilities on recording systems today can be configured to acquire information about the recorded calls from the phone system's Call Duration Records (CDR).  Quality assurance recording is also now available and can assist in making real time recording decisions based on CTI information, such as whether or not to record a call.

Phone recording has its arguments and counter arguments. The first issue to be raised is the question of whether one or both the participating parties should have knowledge of the phone recording. This can be solved by simply notifying the agents when the call recording is happening, i.e. one party notification. The customer can also be notified of the phone recording by a preamble recording (“This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes”). The phone recording may have a periodic beep tone, which would mean a two party notification. Phone recording can thus be an easy and useful process if done in accordance to the state laws.