Understanding PCI DSS Compliance

The Impact of PCI DSS for Contact Centres

What does this mean for your contact centre?

If your business requires you to accept card transactions then you need to ensure that you are able to satisfy the requirements of PCI DSS in your own contact centre environment or work with a partner that has obtained accreditation. If your organisation is large enough and has the requisite skills in-house then it may be appropriate for you to obtain your own accreditation. But for many smaller businesses, there are good reasons for finding a partner who can do this work for you.

What are the advantages of working with PCI DSS compliant partner?

There are several reasons to consider finding a partner that can work with your contact centre rather than trying to go it alone.

1. The PCI DSS is likely to be an expensive process and is likely to require a capital investment of tens of thousands of pounds.

2. The process can take up to a year to complete depending on your current level of data security.

3. You may have to install additional software on your current systems in order to protect data and track changes in your data environment.
4. Your compliance will be reassessed on a quarterly basis.

I don’t currently take card payments: does it matter to me?

There are benefits for any contact centre of working with a PCI DSS compliant partner. This is because the requirements for PCI DSS will take you at least 70% of the way to ensuring that your business complies with the GDPR regulations, which will begin to apply from May 2018.