There is no denying the fact that there is cut-throat competition among all organizations to manage sophisticated contact center operations for meeting their sales targets and the demands of customer service. Though contact center operations are quite effective, these passing years have seen the platform evolve drastically but also exposing the system to a variety of security risks. Some of these security risks can undermine data propriety considerably along with an organization’s business information.
One of the factors that has affected the security of contact center data to a great extent is the transformation to digital documents. We live in a completely new digital era where organizations have started deploying multiple technology platforms and call center software solution to gather crucial customer information.
Though several of these technologies may improve customer care and service efficiency significantly, they also uncover many concerns related to data exposure, since customer service agents need to share sensitive documents that contain confidential personal data at times. This is the reason why it is imperative for organizations to have proper technologies to protect data and the right kind of security measures so that the risks of data tampering from the hackers can be mitigated to an extent.
Another critical factor that can affect data safety in call centers is the outsourcing of contact center operations that manage customer data in distributed locations throughout the world. A risks in outsourcing can also be all those agents in the call centers that are not trained or completely aware of the possible exposure to customer data or even service representatives who may want to derive the benefit of accessing precious consumer data.
A great challenge as far as outsourcing operations in a call center is concerned is the likelihood that many third parties who have been entrusted with the responsibility of developing or maintaining the IT system in call centers do not deploy proper security technologies always. This introduces various kinds of network deficiencies that can be exploited by hackers quite easily. So, it is vital for organizations to focus not only on ways of saving costs while deciding to outsource, but also to concentrate on deploying security solutions so that their customer data is protected well.
Here are some of the tips for protecting customer data in a call center using an appropriate security solution:
Deploy a Powerful Question & Answer Security Protocols
Whenever a customer gets in touch with a contact center, the agents should be well-equipped to ask the right security queries that can be only answered by an authorized and valid customer. So, it makes sense to have those questions in place that will enable the customers to come out with responses that are specific and unique only to them. The questions should also be difficult so that protection of customer data can be easily enforced.
Document Level Access should be Controlled
A management solution for digital solution should be to provide various layers of access control so that call centers can restrict and compartmentalize access to various documents. Agent clearance of their seniority may dictate the nature of functions that can be performed on a document such as share, download or view only. For instance, some private records can be protected using passwords so that call centers can only have the ability to send the customer documents when the customer asks for it, without giving the permission to agents for viewing document details.
Ongoing Training to Customer Service Agents is a must
The simplest mechanism for cyber-criminals or hackers to breach data security and access confidential documents is to compromise or trick a call center employee. We all know that a contact center environment faces the issue of high personnel turnover. The risk can be further compounded. You need to be certain that all your agents should understand and use the security guidelines for accessing and sharing sensitive customer documents. You also need to constantly take care that the agents should not open documents or click links from an unsecured source since it is a widely-used technique of installing malicious software that can place the hackers inside your secure network.
Multiple Layers of File and Data Protection should be used
Since cyber-criminals have become smarter, it is not adequate to use only a traditional database and network. In order to completely secure the documents of customers, it is imperative to have multiple security layers in place to protect and encrypt each document, although it may be a part of a secure network. It will also ensure that any information exchanged between a customer and a call center via email does not get compromised, even if it gets intercepted or transmitted to a wrong recipient.
Having a Strong Password Policy in Place
When a call center wants to secure customer documents from different types of vulnerabilities, it is essential to follow and practice a strong password approach. It is important to note that when weak passwords are used, they can easily bypass all other security mechanisms.
