The primary responsibilities of a call center fall within the scope of marketing – solving customer issues, protecting revenue, protecting the brand, building customer satisfaction and selling products and/or services. It’s in the course of fulfilling those responsibilities that call centers confront an entirely different set of challenges, those relating to compliance – the ‘rules of engagement’, so-to-speak.

Call centers must operate within a regulatory environment dedicated to protecting sensitive and private customer information. That regulatory environment is increasingly stringent and it’s always expanding. Staying in compliance isn’t free, it’s obviously a cost to organizations, but lack of compliance is a much greater cost in the form of direct fines and hidden costs associated with business interruption and loss of customer goodwill.

It’s important to have the proper tools to learn how to manage compliance in the most effective and efficient means possible, and the bottom line is the better the tools the better the implementation and the better the results.

An Overview of Call Center Compliance

There are two major components of call center compliance. The first, regulatory compliance, involves compliance with directives from external governing entities, while the second, strategic compliance, is the adherence to internal protocols that support the firm’s strategic plan.

Industry, geography and strategy significantly impact compliance requirements, so each organization is reasonably unique in that sense.

Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance refers to the operational procedures and practices that ensure an organization remains within the legal framework governing data protection, customer privacy, operations, reporting and interactions with customers.

As call centers handle vast amounts of sensitive customer information daily, it is paramount to strictly adhere to these guidelines. Also, with increased scrutiny of sales methods, it is important to comply with the regulations that apply to each market. For instance, the financial services industry and those selling financial products must adhere to a different set of regulations than an online retailer.

Since markets and the regulatory requirements often change, organizations must have the agility to adjust their compliance processes to match current and likely future regulator demands. Regulatory compliance violations can lead to financial loss, investigation and intrusion into the business by regulatory authorities and diminished public reputation.

Some of the most notable laws and regulations governing call center compliance are:

Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) - United States
The TCPA restricts telemarketing calls, use of automated dialing systems, prerecorded voice messages, SMS text messages, and faxes. It mandates obtaining consumer consent, particularly targeting operations within the United States, emphasizing respect for consumer preferences and privacy.

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) - United States
This act outlines the legal framework for debt collection practices in the U.S., protecting consumers from abusive, unfair, or deceptive actions. It’s pivotal for call centers engaged in debt collection within the U.S. to adhere to FDCPA guidelines to ensure compliant operations.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) - United States
Enforcing laws against workplace discrimination in the U.S., the EEOC ensures equal treatment of job applicants and employees irrespective of race, religion, sex, nationality, age, disability, or genetic information. Compliance fosters a fair, inclusive work environment, crucial for call centers operating in the U.S.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) - Global
For call centers handling credit card payments, PCI DSS compliance is mandatory worldwide. This standard serves to secure and protect sensitive customer data like credit card and personal information, preventing breaches and ensuring secure transactions globally.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - European Union
The GDPR governs data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area, including the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA. Compliance is essential for call centers interacting with customers from these regions, underlining the importance of data protection and privacy on an international scale.

National Do Not Call Registry (DNC Registry) – United States
Consumers can register their phone numbers on the DNC Registry to opt out of most telemarketing calls. Since this is a changing database, it requires call centers to frequently update their systems to remain compliant. The Federal Trade Commission can take legal action to enforce compliance and/or penalize telemarketers that do not abide by the registry.

Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) – United States
The Telemarketing Sales Rule prohibits misrepresentations by telemarketers, provides rules on disclosure, calls to consumers and payment restrictions on certain items.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – United States
For call centers handling health information, HIPAA contains the standards for the use and disclosure of individuals' health information. Any contact center handling this type of information is responsible for properly protecting this information and only disclosing it as the law permits.

Strategic Compliance

You can follow all applicable government regulations and still be putting your business at risk.

While regulatory compliance is tilted toward safeguarding consumer interests, strategic compliance focuses on business interests. Strategic compliance refers to the operational procedures and practices that ensure the organization is in step with the business norms, standards, priorities, metrics and goals established by management. For a call center this may include how a company:

Communicates and resolves customer issues
Reinforces or builds customer satisfaction, loyalty, trust and confidence
Targets and expands sales to existing customers
Targets and acquires new customers

And in companies where this applies:

Prevents fraud and theft
Improves debt collections

The resources an organization dedicates to compliance with regulatory requirements typically corresponds with the risk and cost of non-compliance. On the strategic compliance side, particularly the marketing side, a company is focused on driving sales and profitability.

Strategic compliance should focus on how much time and resources are expended on the organization’s marketing priorities. This process can assist the company in determining whether success or failure is the result of the methods followed or a lack of follow-through.

Monitoring compliance can allow for additional training and/or adjustments to existing practices to meet the business needs. It is important to view call center compliance not as just a policing tool, but one which can also sustain and grow the business.

How Businesses Should Manage Call Center Compliance

Often compliance is viewed as mitigating risk. While this is important, businesses are formed to make money, not just avoid cost. Yes, call centers must operate within regulatory boundaries, but they must also navigate profitably in the markets where they compete. In managing compliance, both risk and reward must be considered in formulating a call center compliance plan.

Businesses are required to abide by applicable laws and regulations and secure customer information and assets entrusted to them. Failures in any of these areas can lead to significant losses and severe consequences for the business.

Since call centers are often information hubs, compliance functions must be far reaching and robust to avoid or minimize:

Regulatory non-compliance

that can bring fines and penalties, operational disruptions, regulator scrutiny, reputational damage and customer loss.

Data breaches

that can jeopardize the business and its customers, create liability, damage consumer confidence, invite oversight and loss due to fraud.

Fraud and theft

that can be especially problematic for financial institutions in terms of lost assets, liability and damaged customer confidence.

Poor representative performance

that can lead to customer loss, tarnished reputation and potentially regulatory non-compliance or security concerns.

Ensure that the call center’s focus and resources are aligned with the business’s marketing objectives.

Enhance operational efficiency

by implementing compliance-driven processes and technologies that improve overall operational performance and customer service quality.

Provide a foundation for scalability and new market access

by incorporating international and new market regulations in the compliance process in advance of entry.

How to Use Technology for Compliance Management

Contact center compliance is neither simple nor narrow in scope. Much is at stake and systems, data, employees and management must be up to the task. To ensure adherence to comprehensive and up-to-date regulatory requirements, contact centers need to know how to leverage innovative technological solutions to facilitate efficient compliance management and enhance marketing. Some of the several critical technologies include:

Call Monitoring and Analytics

Current analytical tools are far more advanced incorporating all customer interactions such as calls, texts, e-mails with other marketing and customer data into a database with powerful analytics that can support varied compliance and marketing needs. This allows a business to track, evaluate, and manage compliance of individual employees and the call center as a whole, or any division thereof, in ways that were extremely time consuming or impossible before.

Elevēo, Your Call Center Compliance Solution

Managing call center compliance is no easy task. Regulators demand compliance while the market rewards performance. Being a step behind in either can be quite costly. To thrive, companies must be a step ahead in managing both the regulatory and competitive sides of the business. Resources used must be efficient and effective, and systems and personnel must be able to adapt to changes in regulatory and market conditions. And employing the proper tools can make all the difference.

For over twenty years, Eleveo has been a leading industry workforce optimization software provider. Successful in highly regulated industries, Eleveo has the tools to meet the highest security standards to prevent breach or unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information. Its call center compliance tools include 100% voice recording, screen recording and live screen monitoring, speech analytics, post-call surveys and other analytics.

With the incorporation of generative AI capabilities in its Quality Management tools, Eleveo automatically reviews and analyzes 100% of voice interactions between customers and agents. Every call is analyzed from a compliance perspective to ensure the agent is adhering to the organization’s compliance requirements.

If call center compliance is an issue for your organization, please contact Eleveo to talk to a Workforce Optimization software professional. See why organizations operating in compliance-heavy industries in nearly 100 countries have selected Eleveo.

What is Call Center Compliance?