Oracle Partner PCI Pal Offers Top-Five Recommendations for Contact Center Payment Security and Compliance

Oracle Communications and PCI Pal recently announced a partnership to bring payment security and compliance to contact centers, while enhancing the customer experience. Bringing together Oracle’s market-leading Enterprise Session Border Controller (E-SBC) with PCI Pal’s proven PCI compliance solutions will help joint customers secure real-time interactions and sensitive cardholder data, whether their contact centers are operating in offices or distributed environments.

The ‘new normal’ has brought new challenges for contact centers. As companies around the world transitioned to remote working during 2020, contact centers dealt with surging call volume, new security threats and remote work compliance challenges, all while trying to maintain the high levels of customer service and satisfaction their customers deserve.

Most companies have adapted to this new world of remote working but going forward contact centers must be designed with an eye to the future. This will help ensure they can continue to provide the same levels of security, compliance and customer service, no matter what that future may hold.

Below are five recommendations on which enterprises should focus:

1. Consumer Security—Cybercriminals have ramped up their attacks during COVID-19, with Verizon recently reporting upticks in stolen credential-related hacking and ransomware attacks, and the FTC reporting skyrocketing fraud rates. Consumers have taken notice. According to a recent survey from PCI Pal, 60 percent of U.S. consumers report feeling more concerned about their personal data security than they did before the pandemic. Rapid adjustments to work processes were a necessity early in the pandemic. Now is the time for contact centers to assure those changes did not result in increased security risks while also assuring their compliance for the long term. Taking these steps will help to put customers at ease about potential cybersecurity concerns.
2. Omnichannel Service Requires Omnichannel Security—Today’s consumers expect retail experiences to be seamless and more personalized, and those demands extend to customer service. Retailers have responded by adding new shopping and customer service channels, such as webchat, SMS, email and social media. With the addition of these new services, the voice channel should not be neglected. More channels have led to increased vulnerabilities and Cyber criminals will target your weakest point. More points of contact means increased possibilities of vulnerabilities. With the added emphasis on newer channels, retailers should look to omnichannel security solutions to protect their customers’ sensitive payment and personal information seamlessly across all these channels including traditional voice.
3. Agent Security in the New Work Paradigm—Maintaining data privacy with work from home agents can be difficult as levels of physical security are hard to maintain. For a nefarious agent, with non-secure solutions in place, stealing financial information from a trusting, unwitting client can be as trivial as asking for it and writing it down on a sheet of paper. Logging and auditing employee behavior can thwart some of these bad actors, but a better, more scalable solution should be built into your contact center that obfuscates confidential data as it is shared.
4. Security and Compliance in the Cloud—The cloud provides seemingly unlimited reach to your customers and your employees. With a cloud-based security & compliance solution, you can rest assured that your contact center lines will remain secure and compliant with industry and regional data privacy rules, whether agents are working in the office or from home. Not only that, but these solutions can be deployed quickly and remotely — a necessity in the COVID-19 era.
5. PCI Compliance—While any contact center that accepts payments over the phone should know about the Payment Security Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), it can be easy to forget that non-compliance can have costly consequences — for your reputation and your bottom line. PCI DSS is a set of 12 requirements created by the major card brands (Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Discover and JCB) in order to minimize risk for credit card companies and consumers. A legal contract obligation between Merchants and their banks, a number of PCI regulations can result in consequences for non-compliance including fines, recurring charges to merchant accounts and increased costs for insurance and claims. But even worse, non-compliance can cost businesses customer trust and loyalty. It pays to be PCI compliant!

By focusing on these areas of vulnerability, contact centers will better manage call volumes, security threats and remote work compliance challenges. Read more about the partnership in our press release and feel free to contact us to learn more about how our integrated solutions can provide data security, compliance and customer satisfaction.