With any IT infrastructure within a contact centre comes risk. And while this risk should not paralyse operations, it should be investigated carefully and practically to find the safest and most appropriate solution.
According to Jed Hewson, co-founder of cloud-based call centre technology provider, 1Stream, there are a few key considerations that should inform a business owner’s decision around what solutions and systems to implement in their business call centre.
Get advice from the professionals
Finding the right service provider and implementing the appropriate systems becomes an easier task once the right questions have been asked and the necessary information extracted.
The important thing is not to guess at this yourself, but rather enlist the expertise of a security professional to ascertain exactly what level of security is required to meet the needs of your business and to make the best investment of costs and time. Armed with this information, you will be better equipped to approach and engage with your cloud solution service provider and ensure the most effective solution and features are implemented.
How much security is enough?
It’s true that security is a major consideration for all businesses who are connected online and collect data, and the importance of this should not be minimised. However, implementing security measures that best fit your business and that will save you money and provide peace of mind, requires a full assessment of your real security needs.
What is the information being collected? What is the value of this information and therefore the likelihood of unauthorised access? And possibly most importantly: What risks are involved should this information be accessed without authorisation?
The reality is that calls where bank account information is shared should be dealt with very differently to calls where little or no personal information is collected.
Based on the likelihood as well as the severity of the threat, the appropriate measures can be put in place. These can range from basic password protection all the way through to out-of-scope data verification, depending on the need identified.
Cloud vs legacy systems
To some, embracing cloud-based technology might feel like an unwelcome risk. But when looking from another perspective, a very different picture emerges. In the past, remaining in control of data meant being in control of the hardware – a simple enough task with a static IT infrastructure. Servers and devices, previously bulky and venue reliant, were confined to the office and easy to monitor and control, along with the data that they contained.
But mobility is now the standard – laptops, tablets and mobile phones with access to business data can be used anywhere and legacy systems are simply not sufficiently capable of managing and securing these. A mobile IT infrastructure is best suited to cloud-based solutions, that are specifically built and tailored for this purpose.
While the threat of external hacks is a significant concern to businesses, often the biggest threat comes from within. Cloud solutions limit this risk by removing the locality of sensitive information. Instead, this data is stored and secured in such a way that internal staff are unable to tamper with or remove it, without being noticed.
As an added comfort, cloud-based solutions for contact centres offer full audit trails, giving call centre managers and business owners full oversight of operations and a clear understanding of processes and efficiency.
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