Why PCI-DSS Compliance is important in 2022 for your Amazon Connect Business
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted already rising e-commerce trends around the world.
Once IRL shopping became problematic, consumers naturally turned to their phones, tablets, and computers to meet their purchasing needs.
Experts say the pandemic has accelerated the shift to online shopping by as much as five years; is it any wonder or coincidence that online scams, identity theft, and account hacking are also on the rise?
Fortunately, there are global PCI compliance systems in place that protect businesses and consumers when applied correctly.
Robo robbery — How PCI Compliance protects data from hackers
The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) is the global forum responsible for developing and driving the adoption of data security standards (DSS) and resources for secure payments around the world; the purpose of PCI DSS is to protect card data from hackers and thieves.
Any organization that accepts, transmits, or stores credit card information must comply with PCI DSS standards, and all companies that handle payment card data, (regardless of the transaction size, number of payments or processing methods), must follow these requirements and comply with PCI.
In a nutshell, good PCI practices keep consumers safe and business owners compliant, following these standards means you can keep your data safe, avoid costly data breaches and protect your employees and customers.
Getting your business PCI compliant and promoting that fact to your customers, shows that your business is serious about security and that you are taking every precaution to keep your customer’s payment details safe.
On the whole, consumers may not understand the lengths and complexity a business experiences when becoming PCI compliant, but this will not stop them from expecting that you will keep their details safe; customers demand this kind of data security, but it only works if the entire industry is pulling in the same direction.
Today, PCI-DSS is a standard required by major card networks (American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard and Visa) and managed by the PCI SSC.
This independent body was formed to develop, improve, disseminate, and assist with the implementation of security standards for payment account security and has issued and continually updates the technical, administrative, and organizational security requirements for financial institutions, merchants, software and hardware manufacturers. and service providers.
The five card networks have agreed to incorporate the PCI-DSS standards as technical requirements of their data security compliance programs and are responsible for enforcing the compliance of all parties involved in a card payment transaction.
If a company does not protect this information it might be subject to lawsuits especially if they have assured clients that their business was safe.
Customer confidence can really affect whether or not an entire fiscal year is profitable, two-thirds of American adults would not return to a business after a data breach; and if you are breached or customers don’t feel safe, goodwill can be completely lost and take years to recover.
Overall, the PCI standard has been created to increase controls over cardholder data to reduce card fraud, as a data breach could result in fines from payment card brands and repair costs in the event of loss of cardholder data; so providing customers with secure payment options is going to be a good move for any brand and its bottom line.
What is Amazon Connect and why should you use it in your business?
Amazon Connect is an omnichannel cloud contact center that works as a service that offers easy self-service setup and enables dynamic, personal and natural customer engagement at any scale.
This system can set up a contact center in just a few steps, add agents from anywhere, and start interacting with your customers.
It can also create highly personalized experiences for your customers through your comprehensive communication system, and separate channels where necessary. For example, it can dynamically offer chat or voice contact based on factors such as customer preference, estimated wait times, and agent skills.
Amazon Connect is based on the same technology used by Amazon associates around the world.
Proving to be hugely popular with enterprise-sized organizations and businesses, there are no upfront payments, no long-term commitments, and no infrastructure to manage; customers pay per minute for phone services and pay per message for chat services, and through messages used with Amazon Connect, as well as associated phone services that are also part of the system.
This mechanism allows Amazon Connect clients to interact with their agents based on factors such as personal preferences and available time, and they can continue to work with the same agent through different channels.
It also allows the same automated interactions and chatbots to be used across channels, increasing operational efficiency.
Plus, it will preserve their engagement history so they don’t have to repeat what they’ve already said, improving the customer experience and reducing resolution time.
Amazon Connect enables Artificial Intelligence by default and enables agents to use AWS AI services with Amazon Connect to automate interactions and improve customer service. This is how it has an integrated natural text-to-speech system to create personalized messages in real-time.
One of the main characteristics of this platform is that it is open and that it can be integrated with other applications of the company, such as Salesforce; allowing business owners to leverage the AWS ecosystem to innovate new experiences for their customers.
How can Amazon Connect Customers Benefit from delivering solid PCI?
In an effort to keep up with the rapid adoption of work from home practices and the incredible rise and rise of the e-comm industry, Amazon Connect Contact Center users across the globe are poised to reap significant rewards for their earlier digital transformation efforts.
But is their data security still up to scratch?
Our AWS customers know the Contact Center is one of the most important assets of a company.
As face-to-face interactions disappear, and rising millennial purchasing power (with their anytime, anywhere, anyhow approach to buying) means positive company/ client interactions are more valuable than ever.
This also means that more businesses have staff taking credit card details over the phone from unsecured locations like covid-safe cafes, co-working facilities, call centers, or private residences, all with an assortment of colleagues, neighbors, flatmates, and family within earshot of your customers’ most sensitive data.
Would you do business with an organization that couldn’t guarantee the safety of your credit card details? Probably not.
INDUSTRY PRO TIP — Digital Transformation, Now!
Every day we wake up with new technologies, which lead to new scams, new regulations, and a digital marketplace that is constantly changing.
With these new developments also come new threats and vulnerabilities that affect not only organizations and companies but also customers and business owners as individuals.
Any company that accepts, processes or receives payments needs to remain vigilant in seeking out faster, easier, and more sophisticated methods of maintaining compliance to keep their customers safe.
While a company can, and should, attach importance to the physical security of its business, I have often wondered how much attention is devoted to protecting information digitally?
Traditionally, the compliance market has been weighed down by long-term contracts, huge setup & ongoing costs, and complex physical hardware. As someone who works in the industry myself, when I was searching for a safe and fiscally effective PCI compliance solution, having time to poke around and understand if the new system would integrate well and benefit the business was ultimately what I was searching for; and after experiencing first hand all the ways in which the industry didn’t work, it was easy to imagine a more modern, cloud based and user friendly solution that wouldn’t cost the earth.
I wanted to be able to try it out instantly, or if not, then at least in my own time, without getting locked in by fees or contracts and definitely not under any circumstances be required to speak to anybody.
After many years of testing and refinement, my team and I are happy to report the Payline PCI compliance solution is globally available to users of Amazon Connect, totally independent of the payment provider and 100% pay-as-you-go. It is truly simple to implement, an easy and innovative service solution for Amazon Connect users.
References
https://www.continuous.net/blog/pci-compliance-management-in-2022/
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/es_es/connect/latest/adminguide/what-is-amazon-connect.html
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/PCI_DSS-QRG-v3_2_1.pdf
https://www.varonis.com/blog/company-reputation-after-a-data-breach/
