The IVR Expert

IVR Telephone Payments As A Service For Call Centers Adds Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Miami, Florida/Toronto, Ontario - April 30, 2012 - Datatel Communications Inc/Datatel Inc in Canada, a leader in PCI compliant IVR Telephone Payments As A Service, announced today the addition of IVR customer satisfaction survey capabilities to its PCI compliant IVR Telephone Payments As A Service for Call Centers.  

 

Datatel’s services are used by businesses and call centers to securely process credit card payments for products and services over the telephone (IVR) without live agent intervention.

 

Datatel’s IVRcreditcardprocessingclients will be able to measure customer satisfaction immediately after a payment has been completed. Because it's integrated into the IVR credit card payment process, transition into a customer satisfaction survey is seamless to the caller, and part of the complete telephone payment experience. Datatel’s clients are able to securely collect credit card payments over the telephone, and measure customer satisfaction all in one call.

 

Datatel offers a complete bank of survey questions which expedites the implementation process and customers are able to leverage the payment integration process reducing the effort involved in implementing a post call customer satisfaction survey, reducing costs and time to market.

 

“By combining IVRCreditCardpayments over the telephone and customer satisfaction IVRsurveys, businesses and call centers can accomplish two critical business objectives, meet payment card industry security requirements (PCI-DSS) and measure customer satisfaction in one single customer touchpoint” said Barnard Crespi Co-CEO of Datatel. He also said, “customers who are using the combined functionality, are experiencing a higher survey participation rate than other post call survey methods”

 

About Datatel

Datatel delivers complete suite of IVR Telephone Payment solutions, which removes the handling of sensitive credit card information by sales, service delivery, customer service agents and in-house self service IVR, helping achieve PCI compliance. Delivered as a Service there Is no software or hardware to buy, and with dozens of industry specific models to choose from, implementation is quick and cost effective. Datatel’s IVR services are employed by business and service providers to automate a wide range of customer interactions over the telephone. For additional information, please visit http://www.datatel-systems.com.

 

Media Contacts:

Barnard Crespi

800-831-6660 x251

Payment Security Guide for Businesses and Call Centers Processing Credit Card Payments Over The Telephone

Any business, organization or call/contact center who accepts credit card payments over the Telephone MUST be Payment Card Industry (PCI-DSS) compliant. What used to be standard practices are being changed with much more restrictive measures to ensure that credit card holder information is protected. This industry transformation is impacting how businesses and call centers take and process payments over the telephone, and most importantly how they run their businesses. For many PCI-DSS compliance can be a very frustrating process, because the nuances in the implementation of solutions do not always allow a black and white answer.

In a Live Agent environment, the people, systems and processes that accept and process payment cards, must comply with PCI-DSS standards. Any person or system that touches or stores in text or voice, credit card data is subject to PCI-DSS. This includes: PBX phone systems, ACD’s, IVR’s, Call recording solutions, PC’s, Servers, customer relationship management (CRM) software, customer tracking solutions.

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with a practical understanding of how these changes can impact your business and provides you with actionable tips to help you navigate through the complexities of PCI as it applies to collecting credit card payments over the telephone.

Key topics discussed, include:

• How Does PCI-DSS Apply To Businesses and Call/Contact Centers who are taking credit card information over the telephone.
• Standards Of High Importance for Call/Contact Centers
• If You Are Outsourcing Your Call Center - What To Consider
• Managing Costs Associated With Payment Security

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE

Other topics: IVR Credit Card Processing, IVR Credit Card, IVR Credit Card for Call Centers

New IVR Telephone Payments As A Service To Help Print Media Publishers With PCI Compliance

Miami, Florida- April 23, 2012 - Datatel Communications Inc/Datatel Inc in Canada, a leader in PCI IVR Telephone Payments As A Service , announced today a suite of solutions specifically designed to help print media publishers address PCI compliance when taking credit card payments over the telephone.

Datatel focuses in developing industry specific IVR Telephone Payment Solutions, which are PCI-DSS compliant, and delivered as a service.

Datatel helps publishers to address specific Payment Card Industry security requirements (PCI-DSS), by providing a simple to implement solution to offload the collection and transmission of sensitive credit card information collection from live agents, and internal Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. In addition, if live agents do not work 24/7, publishers can extend self-service payment options to its subscribers and advertising clients day or night.

Media publishers can significantly reduce costs and time of implementation, by employing IVR credit card processing templates designed specifically for this industry. Furthermore, Datatel supports all major processors and acquirers in North America through its payment gateway partnerships, publishers can continue using their existing merchant account relationships and maintain negotiated credit card transaction rates.

“Credit Card payment security requirements (PCI-DSS) are driving costs up for print media publishers, who employ customer service agents as their primary method to interact with customers, and collect credit card payments for subscriptions, advertising and classified ads” said Barnard Crespi Co-CEO of Datatel. He also said, “businesses are becoming very frustrated dealing with the complexities of PCI, and the rising costs. We help them reduce the the complexity, thus reducing costs of associated to PCI, when addressing credit card transactions that take place over the telephone”


About Datatel

Datatel delivers complete suite of IVR Telephone Payment solutions, which removes the handling of sensitive credit card information by sales, service delivery, customer service agents and in-house self service IVR, helping achieve PCI compliance. Delivered as a Service there Is no software or hardware to buy, and with dozens of industry specific models to choose from, implementation is quick and cost effective. Datatel’s IVR services are employed by business and service providers to automate a wide range of customer interactions over the telephone. For additional information, please visit http://www.datatel-systems.com

New to Canada: Datatel Introduces a PCI Ready Hosted Telephone (IVR) Credit Card Payment Service

 Toronto, Ontario  (June 8, 2010) – datatel a leader in Hosted IVR, Managed Services and Telephony Automation Solutions, announced  the introduction of its Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliant Hosted Telephone IVR Credit Card Payment Service to Canada.

 

Datatel’s Hosted Telephone IVR Credit Card Payment Service provides Canadian business and organizations with the ability to automate the processing of payments over the telephone 24/7, while meeting Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements.

 

As a hosted solution, Datatel provides a telephone payment platform, secure connectivity to credit card processors, secure connectivity to back-office systems, plus a Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant environment and dedicated support.

 

“As a telephone hosted solution, and by working major Canadian credit card processors, we are removing the barriers that have prevented Canadian business and organizations from implementing secure payments by phone”, said Barnard Crespi Datatel CEO. 

 

In addition to cost savings, customers also benefit from having access to the latest technology, a PCI compliant environment and dedicated support.  By avoiding the time commitment of dedicating development resources, keeping up with payment card industry security requirements, hardware and telecommunition infrastructure; customers enjoy rapid and worry free implementation. 

 

About Datatel

Datatel helps business and organizations automate the processing of credit card payments for products and services over the telephone 24/7, while meeting the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements. Datatel’s IVR services are employed by business and service providers to automate a wide range of customer interactions over the telephone.

 

 

Media Contact:
Barnard Crespi
416-444-9172 x 251
 http://www.datatel-systems.com

Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Requirements: A New Breed of IVR Service Providers Emerges

Businesses of all sizes continue struggling to meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security requirements. The PCI standards were established by the major credit cards; American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa to ensure organizations followed standardized practices to protect card holder information.  To learn more about the PCI Data Security Standard and how it may affect your business go to: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org .

The PCI guidelines apply to ALL types of interactions between a card holder, merchants and service providers. This includes IVR applications developed pre-PCI, which allows card holders to make payments for products and services over the telephone. Currently all IVR applications taking credit card payment must be PCI compliant or the merchant could face fines and even lose its ability to process credit cards. Thousands of companies are in the position where they have to re-tool their IVR applications and infrastructure to become PCI compliant; in some instances developing applications from scratch or switch IVR hosting providers, to providers who offer a PCI compliant environment for processing credit card payments.

For the majority of IVR service providers,  who in the past few years have had to resort to cut-throat pricing tactics to gain market share or stay in business, PCI ads a new level of complexity to their business model. PCI is not a commodity; there is a significant cost associated with implementing PCI standards, to ensure card holders are protected.  For many service providers PCI means that they must overhaul their infrastructure, change network architectures, changes which might not be cost effective, when only a small percentage of clients use IVR to process credit card payments.  Because of increased data security concerns, in addition to PCI, each credit card processor has its own unique set of “platform certification” processes, which service providers must navigate to process payments on behalf of a merchant, and connect with the processor.

As a result a new breed of IVR service providers has emerged. IVR service providers who focus on delivering PCI compliant telephone payment applications. With a focus on security and meeting the PCI standards, this new breed of IVR service providers remove the PCI burden from the merchant and shift it to the service provider.

Datatel provides Hosted PCI compliant IVR Credit Card Processing Applications as a Service. Learn more about how to achieve  call center  PCI compliance.

Datatel Communications Supports Mission and Vision of 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium

Toronto , Canada – (May 4, 2010) – Datatel Communications Inc,  a leader in Hosted Telephone Payment Solutions and Managed IVR Services, today announced that it will join executives from around the world as a strategy partner of the 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, the premier international event for CIOs and senior IT executives to become better business leaders.

The annual event offers a day of interactive learning and thought-provoking discourse on the future of technology, best practices, and business that is not available anywhere else. The portfolio of speakers includes more than 50 presenters from a wide range of industries, as well as leading academics from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

More than 600 CIOs and senior IT executives will be attending the 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, which will take place Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 7:30 am to 7:00 pm at Kresge Auditorium, MIT (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA). The full agenda is available at www.mitcio.com/agenda.

“Our attendance remains high because we attract key business leaders,” said Graham G. Rong, the 2010 CIO Symposium Chair. “By bringing together innovative leaders, sponsors  and partners such as Datatel, we foster an environment where attendees gain great insight about how to drive growth and be successful in these challenging times.”

About Datatel Inc.

Datatel is a leading provider of Premium IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Hosted and Managed Services.  Datatel's Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Credit Card Payment Gateway helps business and organizations automate the processing of credit card payments for products and services over the telephone 24/7, while meeting the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements.

Datatel’s IVR success comes from over 14 years of research, development and continuous improvement in delivering IVR service models that provide organizations with reliability, flexibility and the ability to integrate into a wide range of emerging technologies.

About the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium

The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is the premier global event for CIOs and senior IT executives to become better business leaders. In one day, CIOs and senior IT executives receive actionable information that enables them to meet the challenges of today's changing global economy. The annual event offers a day of interactive learning and thought-provoking discourse on the future of technology, best practices, and business that is not available anywhere else. The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is organized and developed by a team from the MIT Sloan Alumni Club of Boston, the MIT Center for Digital Business and the Boston Chapter of the Society for Information Management. Visit www.mitcio.com for more information and registration.

To stay connected to the community developing around the Symposium, please join The Global CIO & Executive IT Group (An MIT Sloan CIO Group), which can be found on Linkedin.com: http://www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?groupID=1719457. Follow Symposium updates on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mitciosymposium.

Editor’s Note:
Journalists interested in a press credentials should contact Rachel Greenstein (rachel@warnerpr.com; +1 617.569.6269) or Robert Minicucci (robert@warnerpr.com;
+1 603.488.5856), Warner Communications.

Datatel Introduces a PCI Compliant “Pay- By-Phone” Hosted IVR Credit Card Payment Gateway Service

Miami , FL  (March 21, 2010) – datatel a leader in Hosted IVR, Managed Services and Telephony Automation Solutions, announced  the introduction of its PCI Compliant Hosted Telephone Credit Card Payment Gateway Service.

 

 

Datatel’s Hosted Telephone Credit Card Payment Gateway provides business and organizations with the ability to automate processing of payments over the telephone 24/7, while meeting Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements.

 

As a hosted solution, Datatel provides a telephone payment platform, secure connectivity to credit card processors, secure connectivity to back-office systems, plus a Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant environment and dedicated support.

 

 

“As a telephone hosted solution, and by working  major credit card processors, we are removing the barriers that have prevented business and organizations from implementing secure payments  by phone, as an option to its customers, donors, members and patients”, said Barnard Crespi Datatel CEO.  

 

In addition to cost savings, customers also benefit from having access to the latest technology, a PCI compliant environment and dedicated support.  By avoiding the time commitment of dedicating development resources, keeping up with card industry security requirements, hardware and telecommunition infrastructure; customers enjoy rapid and worry free implementation.  

 

About Datatel

Datatel is a communications technology company that delivers managed hosted Interactive Voice Response solutions. Datatel’s IVR services are employed by business and service providers to automate a wide range of customer interactions over the telephone.

 

Datatel helps business and organizations automate the processing of credit card payments for products and services over the telephone 24/7, while meeting the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements.

 

Datatel’s IVR success comes from over 14 years of research, development and continuous improvement in delivering IVR service models that provide organizations with reliability, flexibility and the ability to integrate into a wide range of emerging technologies.

 

For Information:
http://www.datatel-systems.com/ivr-payments

IVR – Text-to-Speech or the Real Deal?

At some point during your IVR application planning and development, you will be faced with the decision to either implement Text-to-Speech (TTS) or use the recording of a live person - or possibly both – to deliver the desired information to the end user.  Although TTS has come a long way from its electronic-sounding origins, most end users would agree that it still does not meet expected sound quality expectations, in that it doesn’t sound like a live person.  There are more than a dozen TTS vendors in the marketplace, some of which have mastered the synthesis of human voice better than others.  I’m of the opinion that a recording by a live person is the best method to deliver an optimal customer experience when replacing a live interaction with IVR.  My rule of thumb is to use a live person to record the body of the IVR application, while sticking to TTS for database driven content.  TTS can work very well to read back dates, currency amounts, or short bits of information which can change dynamically, or even for reading names from a database.  Ultimately, you want your IVR application to deliver the most natural-sounding experience.  Only through user testing will you find the right balance between the use of files recorded by a live person and TTS.

IVR Survey Response Rates: How to get it right!

This is not the first time that I have posted about this topic; however, companies continue to scramble because they don't get this part right..  If you don't get this right, your response rate will tank...

When it comes to response rates to an IVR survey, it has little to do with the technology and everything to do with how you communicate the value to your would be participants.

 

If you want higher response rates, then communicate the value to the participant. Not the value that their responses have to you, but what you intend on doing with the information which will benefit them.

 

If you are targeting your existing clients via mail, make sure your invitation to participate in the survey is not diluted in a package containing all different sorts of information. If the response rate is important to you, then use addressed mail, and do not include anything else with the invitation. The Survey should be the only focus, and your potential participant should not be distracted by anything else.

 

Consider the invitation a sales letter, your job is to get your client to participate.

 

You can get all my tips on this topic by downloading  “The Complete Guide To Successfully Executing Your IVR Survey Project” , go to:

http://www.datatel-systems.com/whitepapers/IVRSurvey_Request.htm

 

Barnard Crespi

 

IVR - A Savior in a Time of Economic Uncertainty

In a time of economic uncertainty, when managers are being asked to do more with less, and when cost cutting has become the norm, the ability for IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to assist in accomplishing these objectives has never been more obvious.

Managers are being forced to make difficult choices between high-touch experience delivered by a live agent and low-cost automation delivered by IVR.  It is well known that to process a call using a human agent can cost 5-10 times what it costs to answer a similar call using IVR.  In the past, managers have chosen to deliver an enhanced customer experience over a much lower-cost automated option.

So when it comes time to slash costs, IVR can play a key role.  On the other hand it’s very important not to upset the balance between automation and customer experience.  The answer is not to shift every human interaction to an automated interaction, or to use IVR to make it more difficult for customers to speak to a higher-cost live agent.

I would suggest that you start by taking inventory of all your customer interactions.  Not only the obvious ones.  Your inventory will allow you to prioritize by value contribution, revenue contribution, and cost of each interaction, and pinpoint where IVR can assist you to cut cost, and not significantly upset the balance.

Recently, I received a call from the director of marketing at a company in the health care sector, needing to cut costs by finding an alternative to live agents handling their ‘Diabetes testing kit’ sampling program.  As a sampling program, there was no linked revenue to the call, and the value to the caller was mostly in receiving delivery of the kit on time, which was advertised to over 2.5 million people.  Although this was a highly successful program, based on response, fell under the cuts to the marketing budget. The company recognized that the calls could be handled using IVR, however as an untested alternative they wanted to run a short term pilot to measure the impact to the success of the program.

To minimize the risk the company opted for an “outsourced” IVR approach, which provided financial flexibility by not having to make a long term commitment.  In addition, with reduction in the IT budget, outsourcing the implementation and hosting was a perfect match, allowing the company to control costs, and provide commitment flexibility.

Perhaps when the economy recovers, this company and many others alike will move back the high touch approach of live agents, however as hard economic times call for tough measures, IVR is playing a key role and helping managers accomplish their objectives.

Datatel offers a free guide which helps companies through the IVR vendor selection process, and can be downloaded at: http://www.datatel-systems.com/IVR-GUIDE

Company Web Site: www.datatel-systems.com