Call Center Compliance

What is call center compliance?

Compliance is the efforts put in to abide by industry standards as well as government regulations. Call center compliance helps eliminate unethical business practices. 

Call center compliance laws can vary for different countries. Failing to adhere to these strict rules can lead to large fines. The worst-case scenario of a compliance breach can damage the company’s reputation.

With call center compliance, an organization promises the protection of customer data and privacy. Regulatory compliance covers exchanging, collecting, or reviewing sensitive information with customers.

The primary objective of compliance is to prevent agent fraud and data breaches while stepping up the game of security standards. 

However, ‘maintaining a compliant stricken call center can be an arduous task’, right? 

Well, we’re happy to share that it’s NOT ANYMORE. 

But first, let’s understand why call center compliance is so important.

Why is call center compliance important?

Call centers are a central information hub for numerous employees, businesses, and customers. In short, having compliance issues affects not only the call center but the customers. 

Some of the ways these confidential data can become vulnerable are: 

• Having temporary employees who have access to vital data.
• Employees who aren’t tech-savvy. These employees might end up clicking suspicious links due to a lack of proper information. 
• Employees, you might be fraudulent or an internal hacker with a personal agenda. 
• Any external attacks with the intent of blackmailing or hacking.

Hiccups in compliance can lead to setbacks with reputation or financial stability. Moreover, the lost customer data can end up in various unfavorable circumstances like identity theft, hacked bank accounts, hacked social accounts, etc. 

According to a study conducted by IBM, 83% of organizations have had more than one data breach, out of which 45% were cloud-based.

One of the primary challenges regarding data security is that many yesteryear employees are not accustomed to safe surfing as compared to new-age agents. 

Investing in data security protocol is a smart way to prevent your call center from threats. It is important to assign unique IDs to all employees to protect your call center from internal attacks or threats. This enables easy tracking of employees and makes it simpler to hold the culprits accountable.

What are the common call center compliance issues?

We have discussed call center compliance and its importance to your business. To understand more about call center compliance, it is important to know the common issues that lead to compliance violations. 

So get ready to make some notes as we walk you through these common call center compliance issues. 

1. GDPR guidelines are sometimes ignored
   First and foremost, call centers interacting with European Union residents must pay attention to this. These call centers must comply to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations.
   With this compliance in action, one must be mindful of the following -
   - Consent before recording.
   - Recording and storing calls by providing valid reasons.
   - To educate your customers about your call center abiding by GDPR regulations, you can often create a privacy policy containing the necessary details.
2. Calls recorded and monitored without consent
   Some countries, including Australia and the USA, mandate the consent of both customers and agents before recording and monitoring calls. 
   Call centers must disclose that calls will be recorded and monitored, leaving an option of opting out if uncomfortable. 
   Moreover, some countries have telemarketing laws that prohibit sharing information with third parties. In such cases, supervisors listening to such calls might pose a compliance risk.
3. Calling the DNC list numbers
   Let’s first understand what DNC means. DNC is a DO NOT CALL REGISTRY, which prohibits telecallers from dialing these numbers under most circumstances.
   Some countries like India and Singapore have a national DNC. Sometimes call centers, and BPO providers might end up violating this registry which can lead to huge fines.
   It is recommended to eliminate the risk of calling these numbers by subscribing to national or state DNC lists. You can also delete such numbers from your calling list or even create or own denylist for customers prohibiting telecallers.
4. Breaching the outbound dialing restrictions
   Regulatory bodies like the telephone consumer protection act (TCPA) have certain directives to make communication better and more agreeable. These regulations are channeled to outbound calls.
   To prevent these breaches, you can adapt to timezone management tools, frequently update your call list, and create your own DNC list.
5. Sharing the health data
   Call centers operating for medical organizations need to be extra careful with the health data. 
   To prohibit exposure of health data, government bodies establish health information protection acts like HIPPAA (Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).
   Ensuring only authorized personnel into your private communications network or using a cloud-based service provider with inbuilt technical controls is a good measure to be HIPAA compliant.
6. Documenting payment information
   ‍When it comes to organizations dealing with transactional operations, especially the Fintech space, there is a lot of sensitive information shared.
   PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) prohibits call centers from capturing sensitive card data. These data might include CVV, PINS, and magnetic strip information.
   Moreover, PCI-DSS applies to all forms of communication, including written, verbal, or electronic.
7. Not protecting customer data
   ‍According to the various mandates in different countries, call centers are supposed to protect customer information under certain criteria.
   These might include -
   - Account numbers.
   - Face images
   - Social security numbers.
   - Geographical identification.

8. Not restricting network access
   ‍As call centers handle large amounts of customer-sensitive information, regulatory bodies strictly make organizations liable to protect them. 
   Failing to restrict network access can lead to various breaches, such as malware and viruses, increased security risks, and leakage of sensitive data.
9. Poor agreement of communication protocols
   Heard about the hardships in debt collection? 
   ‍Debt collection is a common issue many organizations face. But the consequences of the same are gruesome. 
   Situations that require calmness and non-violent language pretty much face the exact opposite when they often become an integrity and compliance risk. 
   The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prevents debt collectors from harassing, oppressing, or abusing consumers. This safeguards consumers and prevents agents from performing unethical practices.

Call center compliance checklist

Here is a complete checklist to achieve the most out of your call center. 

1. Securing the network

Security standards should be of the highest quality when it comes to calling centers. With remote working popularly taking over, it is difficult to maintain the necessary security. 

Network access control should be used by all organizations to limit access to hardware as well as software. Organizations should focus on securing physical and logical systems. 

• Physical security includes routers, modems, and devices. 
• Logical security includes passwords and system permissions. 

2. Performing workstation audits

Workstation audits enables the agents’ work environment and compliance regulations. 

Remote agents can sometimes lack the knowledge or carefulness behind the security requirements. Workstation audits can come in handy in such situations.

3. Providing mandatory disclosures

As discussed above, some countries, like the U.S., adhere to certain mandatory disclosures to agents and customers before any calls. 

It is very important to provide these mandatory disclosures that might be legal statements before sharing or receiving any information. 

Some common actions that require disclosures include-

• Making financial transactions.
• Debt collection.
• Recording agent or customer calls.

4. Recording customer conversations

Once there is consent, recording the customer conversations is something call centers can use for various benefits. Call monitoring software aid in auditing, extracting customer insights, and enabling agents to follow compliance measures within a company. 

Managers and supervisors can also use these recordings to provide an enhanced customer experience by taking fruitful measures like coaching agents, and re-strategizing conversations. 

5. Customer authentication

Authenticating customers is a reliable way to prevent fraudulent incidents. Many organizations go for multifactor authentication to confirm the identity of their customers.

6. Offer training

Organizations should offer proper training on compliance procedures and guidelines. It is recommended to have this training annually to keep your employees updated on any regulation modifications as well. 

Here is an interesting postcase on “How to increase your Sales training ROI?”.

7. Adhering to various regulations

As mentioned above, there are various acts and regulations that need to be followed to prevent fines and lawsuits. 

Some of these acts include PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and TCPA. Please note that it is one of the most crucial factors to include in your call center checklist.

Must-have tips to keep your call center compliant

We have gathered some useful tips for you to keep your call center compliant. 

1. Have a call center security policy

Call center security is a mere piece of paper until followed with knowledge and understanding. Agents bringing in their personal devices, including cell phones, can pose a threat to compliance. 

Additionally, agents working remotely have a greater chance of not abiding by protocols. 

A well-versed security policy helps employees get acquainted with the repercussions of violating compliance policies. 

2. Keep your call center checklist handy

One of the hacks to maintain the perfect call center is to keep your checklist handy. As we discussed above, a checklist will ensure you have everything in place to prevent any unforeseen compliance issues from knocking at your door. 

The call center checklist allows you to stay ahead of various regulations. Here are a few points to look forward to.

• Be PCI-DSS compliant.
• Ensure network security by installing anti-malware and secure anti-virus software. 
• Subscribe to a DNC phone numbers list, delete existing ones, or create your own DNC list. 
• Abide by GDPR compliance wherever necessary.
• Allot unique IDs to employees.
• Be HIPAA compliant wherever necessary. 

3. Use call center monitoring software

Here’s an interesting fact - According to FSLA (Fair Labour Standards Act), call centers must record information on wages and hours worked. 

This means that time tracking is essential. Call monitoring software not only enable tracking time but also help in automated auditing, increases ramp-up time, lower AHT, generates customized scorecards on QA, and we can go on. 

To learn more, book a demo here. 

4. Agent training can do wonders 

Provide a minimum of annual training sessions to all employees on compliance regulation. Agents with better hands on the various compliance measures are less likely to commit mistakes. 

Continuous training will also help agents to deliver a smooth and memorable customer experience. 

How Does Convin provide 100% compliance monitoring?

Convin is a versatile software solution that doesn’t claim to solve your contact center woos but resolves many challenges with a few capabilities. Customer management and experience creation is one area that Convin can help. 

By employing automated tools and influencing agents' performance, elevating CSAT by 27% is only a matter of time. 

Let’s dive in and learn how Convin can help with CXM.

1. Focus on active listening, and eliminate repetitive tasks

Dedicatedly working on customer-centric tasks have a higher chance of creating the best customer experience. 

Ditch note-taking and manual call review. Focus on listening to the customer and developing strategies for high-quality follow-up meetings. In parallel, switch to automated call scoring and get 100% of calls reviewed without human interference.

2. Access to key customer moments

‍Conversation intelligence extracts critical moments from the call recordings to put forward customers' requirements for the next meeting. These key moments also reflect the customer's real intention and offer brownie points for creating a positive customer experience.

3. Discover call best practices

Convin offers an intuitive insight dashboard that displays actions, behaviors, and phrases with a higher probability of call success. Investing in the best practices of top-performers ensures higher CX in every contact center conversation.

4. Nurture customer-friendly agents

Automated coaching targets and treats every agent as a unique entity and assists them in unlearning old tricks and learning customer-friendly methods. Personalized coaching can make every agent your best performing agent and ensure exceptional CX delivery in every interaction.

5. Proactive measures with violation alerts

One aspect of a call that can ruin customer experience is an unsolicited agent behavior that negatively impacts clients. Screaming, abusive language, misleading information, flawed statements, incorrect knowledge, and more are timely caught by Convin’s tool and alert the management team for corrective actions.

6. Learn customer sentiments

Customer sentiment presents an accurate picture of a call. How was the customer's overall experience during the call? And presents the chances of a new call or a painful goodbye.

What Are The Product Capabilities Of Convin?

Convin monitors and analyzes 100% of calls automatically based on custom parameters set by your organization. The conversation analysis offers winning behavior identification and last-mile automated agent coaching.

Automated Quality Management

Convin’s call center tool automatically reviews 100% of customer calls, chats, and emails using custom call evaluation forms and spots agent performance challenges and unhappy customer conversations. Through automated quality management, managers and QA generate call scores that help establish coaching needs and staff dissatisfaction. 

Convin also allows auditors to do manual auditing on calls, chats, and emails and leave necessary feedback. 

Winning Behavior Identification

With the help of customer intelligence and custom-tracking , Convin presents parameters that drive positive and negative outcomes for the business. Spot violations, winning parameters,  customer sentiments, and threats to take proactive measures before customer calls.

Automated agent coaching

Convin’s system automatically generates coaching opportunities after reviewing agent performance. Based on the AI-driven call scores- good, average, and poor performers are identified, and the platform triggers personalized agent coaching based on the requirement. Coaching instances are extracted from the top performers' conversations and best practices. This method improves call handling quality and reduces supervisor escalations to a large extent.

Moreover, with Convin’s peer-to-peer coaching, managers and supervisors can add the best-performing agent’s conversations as a module into Convin’s library and assign it to agents who need further coaching. As a result of Convin’s automated agent coaching, businesses can reduce ramp-up time significantly and focus more on productivity. 

Conversation intelligence

CI records, transcribes, and analyzes conversations to generate call insights and transcriptions. The conversation intelligence software discourages manual conversation review and all other non-sales activities by automating notes, action items, and CRM entries.

Access agent performance KPI and customer experience quality criteria to produce consumable role-based reports pinpointing key challenges and opportunities. These reports are not only available on the Convin platform but are periodically emailed to the managers.

Convin’s Call Monitoring system is safe and secure

At Convin, we understand the customer and call data security importance; that’s why we ensure your data is completely secure and safe in our in-house transcription and NLP engine. We ensure call data security in the following ways:

• In-house transcription and NLP
• Secure login and monitoring
• Hosted on AWS
• SSL data encryption
• Role-based access control
• Enterprise-grade application monitoring
• GDPR compliant meeting recording

And before you go, as of now, Convin supports English, Hindi, and Hinglish. And it takes less than a week to get you onboarded, so don’t wait, schedule a demo right away!