July/August 2015

The PCI challenge in call centres - if you don't need the card data, don't touch it! 
Kevin Dowd

 

Kevin Dowd, PCI DSS QSA and Group Chairman of the CNS Group, has worked as a QSA assessor for seven years. During this time he's worked with all manner of industries and businesses, and consistently found that the contact centre is always the most difficult part of the project. 

 

In this blog post he talks about why this is and identifies the particular issues that can make handling sensitive payment card data so challenging in the contact centre environment, and recommends the best way in which contact centre managers can deal with these problems.    

 

Read more.

  
Telephone number changes - 0845 numbers ain't dead yet!

Jonathan Graham, Finance Director, Syntec
You're no doubt aware that the regulator Ofcom imposed a change to the revenue regime on all UK numbers beginning 08, 09 and 118, which took effect on the 1 July 2015. This suggests another review of inbound telephony numbering may be worthwhile. 

By 27 July, Ofcom was sufficiently concerned about the lack of compliance by some Communication Providers concerning their charges under the 2015 changes, that it wrote an open letter to all CPs reminding them of their obligations on pricing calls to Service Numbers. 

In short, the last 13 months have seen a variety of changes affecting inbound numbering, and a lot of sometimes confusing and conflicting information has been circulating. In this blog post Jonathan Graham, Syntec's Finance Director, explains what the changes are and discusses how best organisations should manage them. 

Read more. 


Marcus Hickman, Director,
Davies Hickman
Guest blog:
Connected customers - are you meeting their needs?

Most people expect to be able to interact with family, friends and neighbours instantly using the channel and device of their choice. According to Ofcom, 82% of households have fixed broadband, and 89% have mobile broadband. These levels of connectivity bring expectations and increased demands when we interact as customers with organisations. But are organisations responding to this demand from the digital consumer of today? 

 

 

In this article Marcus Hickman, Director of Syntec's market research agency Davies Hickman, discusses some of the challenges that the new breed of digitally-savvy consumers are  posing for organisations and suggests ways in which organisations can response to consumer demand for multi-channel communication. 

 

Read more.

 

 


Forthcoming events

  

Syntec is proud to be sponsoring the UK's premier payment and security summit, Securing the Contact Centre, in London on 17 September.    

There's more information about the event on the PCI London website. 


 

We will also be exhibiting at Customer Contact Expo at Olympia from 30 September to 1 October. More information on the Customer Contact Expo website 

 
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