Each partnership that creates and sells different kinds of products and services interacts with its customers with the help of call centers. Such centers contain tons of digital information about all interactions between the company and customers. Accordingly, by protecting customer information, you will give your customerβs dependability and confidence.
Personal Data Threat
Data breaches may occur in any type of business, whether itβs a healthcare or customer support services provider. However, such issues have the most drastic effect on call centers that usually operate with PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to verify the identity of the client on the phone.
In case this sensitive data that includes information on the full name of the user, their bank card details, date of birth, email address, among others, gets stolen or leaked, it poses a danger to the clients, as well as to the call center performance and reputation.
Why Every Call Counts
Here is one story about a call center support to note. In 2014, a person named Ryan Block wanted to quit using his cable and internet service provider. He called the call center of the company and, after having a 20-minute exhausting conversation with the support agent, he understood that it was the worst phone battle he has ever had as a client.
What was the problem? The support agent was asking about the reason for canceling the services, even though Ryan consistently stated that he didnβt want to name the reason. In the end, the call center representative refused to process Ryanβs request on canceling the services without the explanation, which caused the conversation to become more and more aggressive with the duration of the call. Ryan recorded the last ten minutes of this terrible conversation and posted it on his social media.
Itβs worth noting that besides being a customer of the given company, Ryan Block also was a VP at AOL at that time and a pretty known tech figure in the industry. No wonder that the story of his frustrating experience with the internet service provider quickly spread all over the web, and some people say that the company was recovering from this bad publicity for more than three years.
This story may be just funny and entertaining if you consider that it can never happen to your company. However, itβs for sure that the mentioned above internet service provider didnβt start as a business wanted to be known for a drastic call center support. This decline in the quality of services probably occurred one compromise at a time.
How Secure is Encryption?
According to the McAfee βData exfiltration study: Actors, tactics, and detectionβ report, nowadays, only 32% of data exfiltration are encrypted. And itβs not the only weak link in the security protection chain.
Even a single failure of the encryption algorithm can cause a software vulnerability. For example, RSA, one of the most used algorithms, promises security until it becomes hard to factor large figures. But is it really a complex problem that canβt be solved? Although now, no one knows how to do it in the right way constantly, once a fast algorithm appears, RSA will become vulnerable and provide no protection at all. Also, such issues as backdoors, hidden layers, faked certificates, among others, can also be weak parts of encryption protection.
Therefore, itβs crucial to choose the encryption method wisely and check whether it will ensure the needed security. It would be a smart move to use a multi-layer security approach that includes encryption of one of these layers.
On-Call or Real-Time Production Security
Many call centers record each and every call, and these calls often include sensitive data, such as account login, credit card details, social security numbers, and so on. For example, when sharing such data in chat, you have to mask all the digits except the last four of such numbers. But if the telephony software canβt mask this data, the chances of experiencing security issues are very high.
In some companies, call center agents have a physical button they need to push to mask sensitive data, but most modern software masks this information automatically. Still, no masking of sensitive data poses the company to security threats.
Also, itβs important to remove such personal data from the servers the company uses. When receiving payments, such information should be processed right away and not left hanging in the system.
A great way to prevent any phishing activities is to enable two-factor authentication. For instance, if a user forgets their password, this two-factor authentication protects their information safely. It will send them an email or text to check if the account owner is requesting the current information and then utilize another security protocol to actually assist the user after the confirmation of the identity.
Reasons to Improve Call Center Security
The most important reasons to improve and maintain high levels of security in the call center are the following:
- No reputation threats and concerns;
- No risks of fines or getting penalties for not complying with the regulatory standards;
- No risks of delivering bad customer experience because of the security issues;
- Possibility to retain customer support agents and avoid staff turnover.
Here are 5 effective steps that will teach you how to protect customer data
Get powerful Q&A security protocols
One of the most common and effective methods of how do companies protect customer information is to use dependable Q&A (question and answer) security protocols. When your customer calls your organization, the service representatives should be fully armed to protect your databases. It is necessary to define the true customers. That is when Q&A protocols will be needed. Putting unique questions that are specific and known only for your constant customers, it will be possible to define their authorization on your service.
Use documents to control access
You should control access to your call centers in all possible ways. One of such is to use a digital document management solution. You should limit the access to the most important documents that are meant only for the private data of your customers and your operations. Some documents may be freely viewed, downloaded or shared. In the meanwhile, you will need password protection for those that can be used only within your call center.
Provide ongoing agent education
Many cyber criminals overcome the protection and get into the system thanks to compromising an employee. You ought to make sure that all of your workers understand all of the hazards. They should not open unknown resource as well as should never install unchecked software. You ought to educate them concerning such
Implement many layers of security
Unfortunately, the traditional network and database protection measurements are not enough to deal with all potential hazards. The modern cyber criminals constantly improve the methods of their dirty work and get used to all traditional ways of fighting against cyber-attacks. Accordingly, you should implement more dependable call center policies and procedures using multiple security layers. You should encrypt each digital document. In such way, you will strengthen and ensure the information that is being sent via the e-mail between your workers and customers. It will be possible to identify whether the recipient is correct. You will likewise protect your documentation against unauthorized access to somebody within your network.
Provide a reliable password policy
You should testify each application concerning any vulnerability. Also, it is essential to use a password system. This will significantly assist you with the protection of the important information. In this occasion, the passwords ought to be used wherever is possible. The passwords are required for your agents, customers, and opening of individual documentation. Include it in the call center rules and regulations for employees so that they used complicated passwords to ensure a higher level of security.
How to Protect Customer Data?
If you want to secure call center, it would be reasonable to consult with the specialists in this direction who will give you more detailed explanations of how to use different methods and systems. You should employ competitive digital security workers who will take care of your database. The well-educated and skilled security officers will provide you with the necessary applications, will install the dependable programs and will be on a constant watch of your resource.
Finally, you can use our tips to ensure your call center security.
Get the Best Call Center Security
One of the multiple offers of our online resource is to provide our customers with the advanced and reliable security service in call center. We know the necessary techniques and reliable measurements that can be used to protect your database.
Using our smart assistance, you will improve your security and will not worry about cyber-attacks again. We offer only the proven methods, which are tested by the time and which have enjoyed success in different call centers. We will provide you with the needed information concerning this essential matter and will provide efficacious training of your support team.
