The requirements

In order to provide a compliant, trusted service, Polishop required the payment section of each call to be completely detached from the contact center agent. When the customer provides their payment card details, the contact center agent must not be able to hear any of the details, either verbally or the DTMF tones from digits being entered via the keypad.

Polishop’s experience with Teclan and their knowledge of how Teclan delivered projects on time made it an easy choice for Polishop to select Teclan to deliver their compliance needs. Teclan was able to extend its existing service and develop an IVR service, built using SCC’s scripting components, to meet the compliance requirements.

Implementation

The Teclan SCC system uses IVR for the first interaction with the customer, capturing the basic information and identifying what the customer would like to purchase. The call is passed to an appropriate agent who progresses with the customer’s request.

To develop the IVR service for compliance, Teclan introduced the notion of a conferencing room. Once the conversation between the agent and the customer reaches the point of payment being made, the customer is passed to the conference room service and the agent can only hear music. The customer enters their payment card details which are immediately sent to the acquirer who onward deals with the credit card network and the issuing banks. Once the outcome of the payment is received, approved or not, the IVR passes the customer back to the same agent. As the customer is being passed back to the agent from the conference room function the agent will receive notification to their screen on whether the payment was approved or not.

For customers whose payments are approved, the agent will repeat the order details to the customer as part of the confirmation process. All calls are recorded and this section of the call acts as the contract which the customer needs to verbally agree before the order is submitted. If the payment was not successful, the agent can offer the customer to re-try using a different payment card or they can provide their address details to have an invoice sent to them for alternative payment methods to be used before the order is submitted.

The last part of the IVR development was to ensure that when the customer made any subsequent calls then their telephone number would be recognised and the IVR would be able to automatically provide an update on the status of the recent order.

The result

The removal from the agent of the payment section of the order ensured that Polishop was fully compliant and was able to continue as a trusted company for customers to buy from.

The expansion of Polishop’s range of products coincided with the introduction of the IVR handling customers’ subsequent calls. The 6% increase in sales and associated follow-up calls was off-set by the IVR which resulted in no increase in the number of agents required.

Recordings of the customers’ confirmation section of the order and agreement to the terms and conditions has provided Polishop with a 9% drop in returns and refunds.

Claudio Sa, CEO of Teclan, commented

“The introduction of the IVR conference room for payments has given Polishop the stamp of approval for compliance. Utilizing SCC to meet Polishop’s different needs has enabled them to increase their operations without increasing their agent head count. They also now have full traceability of customer orders and can easily access the information to clarify any disputes.”