The main issue for making payments over the phone is security. In the past, there was little choice other than to give your card information over the phone. In fact, if you want to pay for a takeaway you are likely to have to read your card details over the phone. This means that there is a risk that card details can be misused. In order to minimise the risk of client’s card data being misused or misappropriated the vendor needs to comply with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards). Any company must meet the minimum standards for card data security.
And for larger organisations that transact much larger number of payments, the standards become increasingly more onerous. And for contact centres, the fact that calls are often recorded leading to card details or keypad (DTMF) tones being recorded as well as the potential for back end systems to retain card details within a database. This means that there is much more potential for payment details to find their way into the wrong hands at scale.
