Why are call recordings split into two channels?

Question

Why are call recordings split into two channels?

Answer

If you're listening to call recordings through headphones or earphones, you might be wondering why the caller is heard in your left ear and the answering party in your right? Or if you're only using one earphone, why you can only hear one side of the conversation?

This is because we use dual channel recording to deliver call intelligence features, such as keyword spotting, call transcription or conversation analysis. For example, this allows us to identify if the caller's tone is positive or negative or if they mentioned a keyword like "booking" or "cancel".