While these times are certainly unprecedented, some things must remain the same – namely customer data privacy, compliance and risk management.
With many if not all of your employees likely working from home right now, it can be easy (if not tempting) to let certain items lapse, like interaction recording over VoIP, landline, mobile, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, etc. When in the office, your staff’s interactions typically fall under the company’s interaction recording protection. However, when these same people work remotely – such as from home – these same protections probably don’t exist.
While some regulatory policies may be relaxed during this pandemic, they surely will come back into force when things calm down. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of compliance, especially if your customer conversations fall under one or more data privacy regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, TCPA and others.
Without the protection of interaction recordings, what your staff does now can come back to haunt you down the road. Imagine a compliance infraction on a patient call, for instance, that could cause you problems a year from now, possibly even a lawsuit. Without the proper recording of that interaction (without any sensitive patient data being captured via mask/mute or pause/resume – aka compliance masking), you could potentially face a significant financial penalty.
Questions to Ask Yourself About Work-at-Home Staff
Assess whether you have the proper level of protection for your work-at-home staff by asking yourself:
- Are employees having potentially contentious interactions which could result in a he-said/she-said dispute?
- Is your staff interacting with customers to collect any outstanding debt?
- Do you have financial staff receiving, transmitting or executing client orders?
- Is any sensitive customer/patient data being shared, such as credit card number, address, pin number, health information, etc.?
- Are your employees discussing financial loans, such as mortgages or lines of credit?
- Do employees participate in interactions that fulfill a contract?
What’s more, you also want to ensure restrict access to your database of recorded interactions from any unauthorized users.
Now is not the time to let your risk management practices falter. Look at your remote employees and the communications tools they use (again, phone, online chat, video interactions) the same way you look at their in-office conversations. If you take this approach, you are sure to protect yourself from future headache and liability.
