John P. Joseph, VP Corporate Marketing, Envox Worldwide You Asked How can I reduce the risk of a security breach when a customer calls?

Considering the enormous financial risk of a potential security breach point, a prudent enterprise would be remiss in not seriously considering computer telephony integration (CTI) as a mechanism for reducing the risk of such an incident. CTI can eliminate the sharing of a caller’s private information with customer service representatives (CSRs) and thus decrease the chances of the caller’s information being used inappropriately by a dishonest CSR.

Every time a call is placed to a support line or help hotline the customer is inevitably required to provide private information such as account id, credit card number, Social Security number, etc. even though they’ve likely already given this information to the same organization multiple times. With today’s databases and CRM systems, the agent to whom they are talking has instant access to all of their confidential information yet the caller has no background on the agent. A single dishonest CSR has the potential to steal the confidential information of tens of thousands of callers in a single year.

Providing this personal information repeatedly can therefore be disconcerting. Consumers no longer know whom to trust, and recent high-profile security breach cases in the US like those at the TJX Companies and Hannaford Supermarkets underscore the need for ever higher security measures to protect consumers from fraud.

When companies think about security technology however, they may not immediately put CTI applications on their short list of technologies to research, but they should. For example, CTI can actually eliminate the need for repetitive disclosure of personal information. By integrating CTI features such as “need-to-know” screen pops and other security mechanisms, the agent only has the ability to collect and view the necessary information and is not privy to highly confidential information unless specially authorized. This means the consumer is protected and their information is only shared with those individuals that have the proper security clearance.

In spite of the obvious benefit for customers and potential goodwill to be generated, most enterprises have not implemented CTI in their call centers. In some cases, organizations have even purchased the technology yet have not trained their agents on how to effectively use it. Instead, they simply trust these relatively unknown employees to act responsibly. Though the overwhelming majority of agents can be trusted, it only takes one dishonest CSR doing the wrong thing to endanger customers and compromise an entire organization’s reputation.

What’s needed is a call to action from consumers to businesses to research and implement CTI, something which can be done for relatively low cost and usually within a short timeframe. Understanding the security risks and the options available for addressing them will enable an organization to address a costly and potentially devastating issue. And it will go a long way toward reassuring their customers that doing business with them is as safe as it can possibly be.

Envox Worldwide