Nearly gone are the days of compliance being an afterthought in the contact center. Organizations are looking to the contact center as a catalyst for the greatest opportunity for change and improvement, and many are looking to start with some of the perceived greatest of obstacles. Historically, one of the many challenges to contact centers’ success in customer experience and brand reputation was a strong compliance strategy. The right solution can provide simplicity in the place of confusion and chaos.

Regulations are continuing to evolve, as are the solutions being made available. Solutions that helped businesses reach compliance two years ago may not be the enhanced solutions that can take your contact center to the next level. PCI DSS continues to push organizations to remove sensitive PII and cardholder data from the scope of PCI compliance entirely, an industry term known as descoping.

In the past we’ve seen compliance take a back seat to what were seen as more pressing issues at the time, such as efficiency, remote working, providing an omnichannel experience, and a budget focused on CX and brand reputation. In today’s environment, descoping is a pathway to compliance that simplifies the experience, keeping that list of priorities at the forefront instead of detracting from them.

Let’s dive deeper into the benefits of each.

Efficiency

The enhanced compliance process of descoping keeps the sensitive data from ever entering the contact center environment. It gets passed along directly from the consumer to the payment processing entity, removing the contact center from scope. In this scenario, the contact center agent, would never see or hear the card details.

The process of repeating data back and forth, making corrections and clarifications, would be unnecessary. This enables the agent to focus on the customer and what can truly impact contact center KPI’s such as reduced call times, reduced transfers, and higher customer satisfaction scores. This process also equips any contact center agent to be able to take payment, removing the need for a transfer to agents with permissions to process sensitive information or a billing department.

Remote Working

This past year we have seen significant changes in agent location as many contact centers have had to take a hybrid or remote approach with their teams. When implemented through cloud technology, descoping can provide a similar or identical customer payment experience whether your agents sit in an office or are remote. This is where an enhanced compliance solution becomes beneficial as other solutions struggle to make the transition to remote working. In addition, this provides a new level of simplicity when onboarding seasonal agents.

Omnichannel

Businesses are looking to deliver omnichannel experiences to their customers, a service that many consumers are growing to expect. Descoping can be done, not just at a telephony level, but via any business communications channel. Providing a secure and compliant process to your customers through their channel of choice can be a competitive game changer.

Customer Experience

A heavy focus is being placed on providing the best customer experience and building the best brand reputation. Instead of a clunky, manual, or partially compliant solution, consider letting your compliance strategy work for you. Consumers desire security—and leaving their most sensitive details in their hands gives them the control and confidence in their interaction with your organization. The peace of mind on the customer’s end, keeps the agent’s conversation focused on a true customer focused experience rather than a data transaction. Customer peace of mind is invaluable in brand reputation, as is the removed risk of a sensitive data leak.

In a world of complex systems and processes, there is great value in simplified solutions. Our partnership with PCI Pal helps deliver the simplified compliance solutions that you may be looking for. Consider leveraging what has been a pain point, into a competitive differentiator for your contact center.