The security of sensitive billing and personal information has been a huge topic for years in the call center industry. The question has always been, “Where is that data stored, and who in the organization can see that information?” There is always the possibility that someone within a company will phish through customer credit card data and then distribute that information for illicit purposes? Even well-meaning agents can be tricked into revealing customer information by clever and charming social engineers. Exposing sensitive billing information to call center agents over the phone makes the risk of identity theft and credit card fraud ever-present.

Fortunately, Payment Card Industry (PCI (News - Alert)) data security standards have been set forth in an effort to increase controls around cardholder data and to reduce credit card fraud via unnecessary data exposure. Companies that fail to meet these compliance standards face a huge public relations backlash when customer data is compromised. 

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Recently, Five9 (News - Alert) bolstered its PCI compliance offerings by partnering with KomBea. With new SecureCall integration, agents using Five9 will be able to securely exchange sensitive information with customers over the phone.

Data theft has become so sophisticated over the years that eavesdroppers and nefarious call center agents are able to determine credit card information just by listening to the audible tones corresponding to dialed input. With Five9’s latest release, when a customer enters in his or her credit card number, the tones are completely flattened out, making it impossible to pick up what numbers are being hit. Moreover, the information is masked on the call center agent’s dashboard in the same way an Internet password is masked during input. So, the agent is aware that information is being entered, but has no way of knowing what that information contains. 

In the past, to ensure this level of information security, call centers had to take drastic and frustrating steps. This included stopping and restarting call recordings, disconnecting and reconnecting live call sessions, and prohibiting storage in data bases.

In contrast, Five9 new PCI compliant application is completely unobtrusive. 

”Everything happens as normal,” explained Mayur Anadkat (News - Alert), director of product marketing at Five9, to TMCnet. “The agent is still on the line, the CRM system is still working, the recording is continuing, the consumer is still doing the same thing, and none of the information is captured by a database that could potentially be subject to viewing.”

Operating like a CRM plug-in, the integrated application will ensure that call centers utilizing Five9’s remain PCI compliant –a big win for companies and their customers.