What is PCI Compliance?

Whether you’re selling handmade art at the local farmer’s market, or running a large organization generating thousands in sales daily, PCI compliance is something that has been addressed when discussing payment. 

That’s because company dealing with the payment, storage, or transmission of credit card information must comply with a set of standards and practices aimed at protecting consumers and businesses.

Examples of those required to comply with PCI standards include:

• Brick and mortar retailers
• Financial institutions
• Online retailers
• Insurance companies
• Hospitals and other medical facilities
• Farmer/flea market vendors
• Service providers

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is responsible for the creation and advising of safe and ethical card payment practices. This body is made up of major credit card companies who found it in their best interest to protect themselves and consumers. 

There are 4 Levels of PCI compliance for merchants, and 3 Levels for service providers. These levels are divided by the amount of transactions they complete, the amount of e-commerce transactions, and the number of accounts handled. Most small businesses are classified as Level 4 merchants since they typically handle between 20,000 and one million transactions a year.   

PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance was initially rolled out as a way to keep up with the changing relationship between merchant and consumer, more specifically the way products and services are paid for. Online shopping was a major factor behind these efforts, with easier payments came more areas of vulnerability for criminals and scammers to capitalize upon.

But it’s not only credit card transactions to which these standards apply.  

Gift cards provided a new area of concern for businesses and credit card companies; gift card recipients were at risk for paying with empty cards and online merchants could get scammed as well. With the growing use of gift cards issued by major credit card companies, the safety surrounding these transactions are taken even more seriously.

Failing to adhere to PCI standards is not illegal at the federal level, but it is in the best interest of merchants to follow them. Complying with PCI standards is not only ethical, but also necessary in order to avoid fines, lawsuits, and other security related issues. Fines incurred by data breaches or fraud loss can take a toll on a business, possibly to the point of bankruptcy.

PCI compliance should be taken seriously by a business if they want to succeed, if this can’t be done in-house then they should enlist the help of a company to assist in maintaining the standards. Free of fines and bad publicity, organizations can then do business knowing both them, and their customers are safe.  

Source: https://ebcallcenter.com/call-center-blog/what-is-pci-compliance

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Business Continuity

 

1.)

Eckoh CallGuard Remote A flexible way to take secure, PCI DSS compliant payments from home or remote locations. It’s quick to deploy needs no changes to processes or systems. CallGuard Remote prevents agents from seeing, hearing or recording card details so, the agent, their screen, and any call recordings are removed from the scope of PCI DSS. This simple approach means the customer effectively types their own payment information into the agent’s payment screen, but with the card details being shielded from the agent’s view. It’s simple, and highly effective.

2.)

OpsTel Services SPEED & PLUS The SPEED solution solves for service level issues while cost optimizing the environment with automation. Provides an enhanced way to speed up & optimize invoking temporary agent skills configuration changes into the contact center environment. Speed allows you to schedule both future changes & temporary changes that auto-revert back to the original state when scheduled time expires. Speed features: *Automated / Scheduled Temporary Agent Skills Configuration Management *Immediate Temporary or Reoccurring Schedule Skills Configuration Changes *Easy to Use/Operations Administration Focused *Descriptive Monitoring Activity Dashboard *Detailed “End to End’ Audit Trail and Perfor... (read more)The SPEED solution solves for service level issues while cost optimizing the environment with automation. Provides an enhanced way to speed up & optimize invoking temporary agent skills configuration changes into the contact center environment. Speed allows you to schedule both future changes & temporary changes that auto-revert back to the original state when scheduled time expires. Speed features: *Automated / Scheduled Temporary Agent Skills Configuration Management *Immediate Temporary or Reoccurring Schedule Skills Configuration Changes *Easy to Use/Operations Administration Focused *Descriptive Monitoring Activity Dashboard *Detailed “End to End’ Audit Trail and Performance Monitoring & PLUS provides a single interface, where operations teams no longer have to rely on HR, IT or any other organization to administer agent profile data across multiple technologies in the contact center. The PLUS solution allows for simplified provisioning & maintenance of agent profile data reducing processing time from days, weeks or months in LESS THAN 10 MINUTES! The PLUS features: *Agent Provisioning Cycle Time Reduced from Days/Weeks to 10 Minutes or Less *Fully Automated Agent Onboarding / Updating / Maintaining / and Offboarding of Agent Profiles (Identity, Access, Utilization) *Overlays and Enhances Existing Contact Center Solution Set *Enables Operations Staff to Maintain all Aspects of Managing an Agent’s Profile through “Single Pane of Glass” *Supports Multi-Faceted Agent Profile Attribute Configuration Requirements; e.g. Union Rules, Seniority Dates, Etc. *Detailed Agent Profile Audit Trails

3.)	Vads VADS Business Continuity Plan VADS provides a business continuity plan by providing full outsource services and manage services. we've provided this to several clients. You can contact us for a detailed study case.

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Teckinfo Solutions Pvt. Ltd. InterDialog UCCS Adapting to the new normal contact center industry has to be ready for work from anywhere agents to maintain business continuity. Even when working from remote locations, the work from home agents or remote agents need to be monitored for smooth customer service operations or effective tele sales. InterDialog UCCS with its work from home agent ready call center software helps you to have complete control over your contact center operations. Agents can log in from any where , home, office or any other place where they are through their mobile phone or desktop , or even through our ID mobile app . With centralized recording & reporting , you gain visibility of all contact center metrics , and you can manage your center the same way as you were doing when working from office.

 

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