14-point Call Center Security Checklist to Protect Customer Data

As front liners and the main connector between customers towards your business, it is important to understand and uphold a level of security and call center regulatory standard when handling information disclosed by your customers.

Call center services should not let their client’s valuable information be compromised.

Businesses in the past have struggled to improve call center security, especially with the increase in remote work.

This challenge has become an important issue that companies must address and resolve with urgency.

In a study made by McKinsey, over 44% of their survey respondents lack trust in services or marketing technologies, especially with the handling of their data.

Responses in this study reveal that our customers are becoming increasingly intentional about the kinds of data that they share with customer services, especially those without a clear call center security policy.

In a company report about data privacy, they noted how 34% of data breaches occur with the help of internal actors and detection can be quite slow as it takes over 288 days to detect a breach within a system.

In this article, we’re discussing some call center security best practices you should consider when building your security checklist.

Determine those Call Privacy Threats

Identifying call center data threats is important as it will show you the root cause of each problem.

You can easily forecast where the pain points will be and how you can resolve and secure your call center security policy in the long run.

Here are some threats that you should be wary about.

Internal threats are actors within the company that can start the release of information to other parties that may put your client at risk with fraudulent activity.

This means insider activity and personas within your security standards that can leak confidential information outside. Some of which can include:

1. Temporary Employees

   While we see the good in most of our staff and the help that we employ, it can sometimes be unavoidable when some could leak information as they lack loyalty towards your company.

2. Insider Trading or Attacks

   Insiders or those linked to fraudulent activities like syndicates that can initiate programs where they may send malicious links to your customers

3. Vengeful Employees

   While we all hope to see off our leaving employees on a good note, those who have left with vindictive intention and have had access to sensitive information may cause these kinds of problems

4. Illegal Downloading of Data

   Hidden hackers within your organization, usually within temporary teams or delinquent employees may have access to the personal information of your customers.

External threats usually involve third-party services or add-ons that you use within your business processes.

Technology will always be vulnerable to cyberattacks even as networks and security standards have been developed over the years.

Fraudulent activity will always get vital information from our customers. How can you ensure the solutions improve your call center security and ensure that your customers are safe from these external threats?

5. Using Unreliable VoIP Services

   Using data encryption for software like VoIP to work as an acting border in between your calls can prevent network intrusion, especially for call centers that handle multiple numbers of calls within a day.

6. Storing Data on Unsecured IVR Systems

   Using IVR systems where phone conversations are stored in a system can be susceptible to breaches and leaks.

   Data from one call can instead be either backed up in a secured system or deleted to make it available for another call.

Avoid Unwanted Data Security Breach with Call Center Security Standards

Avoiding these unwanted scenarios is now crucial, especially as you improve your call center security.

These attacks rely heavily on digital platforms that can be prone to cybersecurity threats.

You need to acknowledge that security standards are now considered top priority in most businesses today.

Here is a call center compliance checklist that you need to look at to ensure safety and security:

7. Make sure that your systems and software are up to date

   Improve your call center security by installing updates and software patches.

   This ensures that your systems and components within your system are up to date with the latest firmware that adheres to call center security checklist.

   This is highly important as bad actors regularly test systems and try to find more ways to crack and access important data and information from your business.

8. Deploy an anti-virus software

   Having a system that can track any cyber attacks in your system through the deployment of anti-virus software that can detect any malicious activities entering your system from various calls or through other internal and external threats.

   Having an anti-virus software as a part of your security can help you check within the cracks of your system to avoid any potential threats.

9. Eliminate systems that have little to no security updates and upgrades.

   If you have not improved your call center security system in a long while, chances are it is at a higher risk of cyberattacks that can endanger your customers’ confidential information.

   It’s important to ensure that all of the systems that you are using up to date.

10. Remove legacy system users and minimize confidential data access

    Minimize and streamline the users that can only access confidential information and data. By doing this, you can easily determine and troubleshoot any unwanted scenarios and keep your customers’ information as secure as possible. Eliminating these older systems will help not only improve your call center data security but also your workflow and efficiency as a customer care provider.

11. Authenticate your calls to ensure it is real

    Use authentication software to help determine whether the caller is legitimate or if it is a bot used to extract information through unwanted means like phishing.

Implementing Call Center Security Best Practices Can Lead to Business Growth

There will be chances that customers will not prefer to work with you if your call center security is not well-established as they will not be confident their data is safe.

Ensuring the safety of your customer’s data can lead to significant advantages for your business.

12. Earn Your Customers’ Trust

    Your business and call center service can provide a great sense of trust and improve your reputation within the industry< p>

13. Minimize Unnecessary Costs

    Your call center service avoids penalties imposed by call center regulatory standards, which can become an unnecessary cost for your business

14. Investing in Call Center Security to Improve Service

    Spend more by improving your call center security, which could be avoided if already implemented prior to engaging with customers.

Call centers and customer support teams are vulnerable to privacy breaches, mainly due to technologies and software being easily prone to cybersecurity threats or even personnel problems within the company.

So many companies invest in ensuring that the right solutions and call center security standards are implemented.

Deploying this from scratch can become time-consuming and costly, this is why offshoring is a viable solution for most companies who want to get the benefits of a secured call center service that will not break the budget.

Offshoring your call center representative will give your business access to the highest standards of call center security at a fraction of the cost.

This ensures that your customers’ data is taken care of. Once a mishap like this happens, this can not only affect your relationship with your customers but also the reputation of your business and its growth, and this is what a call center service provided by a reliable offshoring provider can help your business with.

Your customers will feel much safer conducting their business and share more vital information with you that can help you enhance your products and services better.

But in order to give them that confidence, your business must ensure that it enforces call center best practices.