If You Need IVR Compliance, Look for These 6 Features

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a great tool that helps businesses and their customers get more done in less time.

Because people share sensitive information (personal information, patient information, credit card numbers, etc.) through the system, IVR compliance is an important consideration. The most influential IVR regulations come from Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), but there are others.

In this article I’ll cover everything you need to know about IVR compliance and provide tips on finding a vendor that offers the features you need to minimize your regulatory burden and simplify compliance .

Managing risk through IVR compliance

In the case of IVR, tools that use automated functions to increase revenue, such as collecting payments and arranging callbacks from potential or existing customers, come with some compliance risks.

The biggest risks you will face as an organization Accept payments via IVR Includes the following:

• Data leakage: When your business accepts card payments and financial information, it becomes a prime target for hackers to steal credit card information. However, if an organization that suffers a data breach complies with PCI-DSS, its penalties will be significantly reduced due to compliance.
• litigation: A data breach can result in legal action by all affected parties, including credit card companies, which can have costly and punitive consequences.
• Complaints and Disputes: Incorrect routing and long call wait times can lead to many unpleasant consequences, especially when money is involved. This dissatisfaction can lead to customers abandoning the call in frustration or even switching to a competitor.
• Negative brand perception: One of the main intangible losses a business can face is the irreversible damage to its reputation, which is the possible consequence of a data breach due to lax IVR compliance.
• Compliance Issues and Penalties: Failure to comply with PCI-DSS standards can result in hefty fines, increased transaction fees, or even the loss of the ability to process credit card payments.

The major credit card companies, namely MasterCard, Visa, Discover and AMEX, have established PCI SSC and impose fines for non-compliance. For example, failure to meet PCI-DSS compliance requirements for more than seven consecutive months can cost as much as $100,000 per month.

Additionally, more specific penalties include fines of $5,000 per month (for low-volume customers) and $10,000 per month (for high-volume customers) if the violation lasts between 1 and 3 months. If the violation lasts for 4 to 6 months, the penalty increases to $25,000 per month for low-volume customers and $50,000 per month for high-volume customers.

It’s important to note that these violations are different from those mandated by government regulations. Through IVR compliance, card brands will fine payment processors for non-compliance, and payment processors will in turn penalize responsible merchants.

Keep in mind that most risks and penalties can be managed and absorbed with relative ease by institutions such as large banks, but if you are a small business it could result in bankruptcy. To reduce risk, it is best to incorporate or implement the built-in compliance capabilities of many IVR services.

Encryption and data loss prevention measures

You must ensure that your credit card information is never transmitted over the Internet in plain text. Contact centers have a responsibility to require that financial information be encrypted while in use, in transit or at rest.

Additionally, the Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) standard is a comprehensive list of security requirements that must be implemented by P2PE providers.

Comply with PCI DSS and other security best practices

IVR platforms must implement appropriate data retention policies so that your customer information is not compromised. For example, when processing credit card payments, sensitive identity verification data such as CVV/CVV codes cannot be stored after authorization.

Additionally, call centers are not allowed to store any card data and therefore need to process all stored credit card information.

IVR using built-in compliance solutions

If you lack the resources or time to build a secure system infrastructure yourself, adopting an existing IVR-compatible payment platform is a viable option.

You’ll most likely want to look for a PCI-compliant managed IVR service provider that enables secure payments, because in addition to handling various delivery aspects, one of its benefits is that it eliminates the need for a human agent to handle sensitive card information. In this reduced-scope environment, you eliminate the risk of a data breach due to mishandling of sensitive information.

Of course, you also want your solution to be cost-effective and easy to deploy. look at mine IVR Pricing Guide If you’re not familiar with these products, predicting the true cost of these systems can be a little confusing.

Regardless, finding the IVR provider that’s right for you comes down to investigating the following six potential features.

See: Learn why you should Using a hosted IVR Instead of hosting your own.

Six important characteristics of IVR compliance

1. Compliance certification

I considered not including it in the list because it’s common sense – but this is a post about compliance so I wouldn’t risk it.

It is critical to confirm that the provider has the necessary compliance certifications to ensure safe and legal operations. Key certifications to look for include:

• PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard).
• ISO 27001 (International Organization for Standardization – Information Security Management).
• SOC 2 (Systems and Organizational Controls 2).
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
• CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act).

For healthcare-related use cases, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance is especially important. Business phone service or IVR providers must be prepared to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) to ensure the protection of sensitive health information.

If a vendor is unwilling to sign a BAA, it doesn’t matter how secure their systems or access controls are. See my full post How to Find HIPAA Compliant VoIP A complete breakdown of organizations to consider.

2. Secure payment gateway

Ideally, an IVR should integrate seamlessly with the payment gateways your organization already uses, as this minimizes implementation complexity and ensures consistency in processing transactions. Familiar systems shorten your team’s learning curve and help maintain existing compliance workflows.

If an IVR needs to switch to a new payment gateway, make sure the provider provides strong support, clear documentation, and evidence of PCI DSS compliance to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Using a different payment gateway is not necessarily a disadvantage, but it can present challenges. You need to evaluate the gateway’s compatibility with existing infrastructure, its ability to tokenize and protect payment data, and the impact on scoping efforts. Additionally, verify that the new gateway can handle your transaction volume and meet the specific compliance needs of your industry or region.

See: view Best payment gateway learn more.

3. PCI DSS scoping options

Compliant IVR systems should provide functionality that facilitates “scoping” by excluding sensitive payment data from the internal environment.

In reality, scoping simply means separating customer card and financial information from corporate systems so that the excluded ecosystem is no longer “in scope.” By decoupling a company’s infrastructure from customer card information, the risk of card fraud can be mitigated and minimized.

Using a payment gateway is a good start, but you can do more, and some IVR systems will make it easier than others. Key options to look for include:

• Call recording with editing function For call centers that can be configured to automatically edit or block sensitive payment information.
• DTMF shield Hide payment details during entry.
• Fraud prevention tools Identify and stop fraudulent transactions before payment data is processed.
• Tokenization Replace cardholder data with non-sensitive tokens.

Note that IVR systems with limited integration options may require manual handling of sensitive data, complicating the definition process. Without seamless integration with secure payment gateways or tokenization services, these systems may increase compliance burdens rather than reduce them.

4. Audit and reporting functions

Comprehensive logs of all interactions should be maintained to ensure that every customer engagement, especially those involving sensitive material, is traceable and accountable. These logs provide a valuable audit trail for internal and external reviews, ensuring transparency and Stay compliant with GDPRPCI DSS and other regulations.

Look for an IVR that allows you to customize and automate reporting, which will streamline the compliance process. You’ll be able to accurately track your requirements, ensure compliance with security protocols, identify potential compliance risks, and highlight areas that need attention.

In a compliance-driven environment, comprehensive auditing and reporting capabilities are critical for IVR systems.

5. Democratic National Committee Compliance

For any business involved in telemarketing or telemarketing, Do Not Call (DNC) compliance is an important aspect of regulatory compliance. Automatically contact customers using an outbound dialer. Under regulations such as the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and similar laws around the world, companies must ensure that they do not contact individuals who have opted out of receiving marketing calls.

IVR systems can help enterprises manage this compliance by integrating the ability to instantly screen outbound calls against DNC ​​lists. This ensures that no calls are made to numbers that appear on these lists, helping to avoid hefty fines and penalties.

While outbound IVR systems are primarily responsible for DNC compliance, inbound systems can also play a role in confirming a customer’s request to be added to the DNC list during the interaction. For businesses that rely on automated call systems for marketing or outreach, ensuring DNC compliance through IVR features such as automatic list matching and real-time updates is critical to mitigating risk and maintaining good relationships with customers.

See: Learn why Agents replaced by outbound IVR aren’t mad about it.

6. IVR auxiliary functions

IVR systems must be designed to be usable by all users, including people with disabilities, to ensure full compliance with accessibility standards. This is even more important for contact centers with IVRs that include pipes such as live chat.

Ideally, the vendor you choose will provide tools to help you ensure that your IVR system adheres to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, such as providing voice prompts, clear navigation, and screen reader compatibility to help meet legal requirements and provide an inclusive user experience.