Many organisations have found it more financially attractive to outsource the management of call centres - or contact centres - to third parties.
In principle, this sounds sensible, but there is a ginormous pink elephant in the room that everyone sees, but few are dealing with.
Without a resilient and updated security strategy in place, you may open a big can of suffering that knows little bounds. The business who hired the call centre can face reputation damage and even fines; the company providing the contact services may face lawsuits; and the consumer faces the possibility of stolen private information.
So we decided to survey the UK public to find out just how big of a problem call centre security is perceived to be, and the numbers were staggering. 500 UK adults were asked, “Are you concerned about how call centres are securing your personal information?”
76.4% of those surveyed expressed concern. 35.8% said they were ‘very concerned’ about how information - such as their name, address, contact details and credit card information - might be protected at call centres from hackers and rogue staff.
Another interesting finding from our research is that the older the person who was surveyed, the more likely they were to be worried about call centre security; 90% of those over 65+ expressed concern, with 50% saying ‘very concerned’.
Whether the issue of security warrants this kind of concern is up for debate. There is certainly no shortage of news articles about phone fraud.
Either way, something must be done, and fast. If organisations are going to continue the outsourcing of their call centre responsibilities to third parties, then the reputation of call centres must be raised.
The good news is that responsible companies are trying to solve the problem of lack of security in the contact center. They realise that it’s a problem which, left unaddressed, could cripple their ability to efficiently and effectively run the business.
In September 2014, we held our first PCI PORTAL 2014 - Securing the Contact Centre event. This networking event, solely catering to the security issues related to the call centre was fully booked, despite it being our first year.
Our next Contact Centre event is scheduled for March 2015 in London. We are looking for great speakers, event sponsors and attendees. If you are interesting in attending or sponsoring this event, simply get in touch with us.
- AKJ Staff writer
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ABOUT AKJ Associates
AKJ Associates is a company that specialises in bringing together information security stakeholders and service suppliers in order to help solve the security, compliance and risk management challenges that face large enterprises, global companies and governments. The company has offices in London and Singapore and is staffed by a highly skilled team of professionals. AKJ Associates has an established reputation for delivering networking opportunities of the highest quality and agendas that deliver essential information to decision makers representing a cross-section of industries. http://www.akjassociates.com/
Tags: pci event conference Contact Centre Call Centres survey statistics poll security third parties outsourcing
