If You can’t Trust Your Cloud Provider, Who can you Trust?

I can’t imagine having a talk about moving to a cloud based call center without talking about security in the cloud. Inside sales reps and customer service reps are constantly accessing, sorting and storing invaluable data as they communicate with your customers and prospects. This data can be in the form of voice, chat, text and e-mails depending on the communication channel that is utilized. Additionally, there is tons of data regarding trends and analysis in reports that are generated during customer interactions.

According to a Network World article, users shouldn’t rely on their cloud service provider’s security features to protect their most critical data. Another study from Gartner indicates that 75% of customer service organizations will move to cloud by 2013. So on one hand we have a lot of companies moving to cloud based call centers, while security in the cloud remains a big concern.

So what are users supposed to do? Call center decision makers should look for a system that not only uses end to end encryption, but also uses “tokenization“. This way none of the sensitive data ever leaves the enterprise network. Tokens that only have names and phone numbers are stored in the cloud. Even these are encrypted end to end further securing sensitive data.

One way to do this is to use 3CLogic’s distributed architecture called V-TAG (Virtual Telephony Application Grid). Even functions like call recording are not done centrally, which allows for these recordings to be stored on customer premise. 3CLogic uses tokens, such as incoming caller id, to access customer information from local CRMs and databases. Since V-TAG uses a distributed architecture, none of the sensitive information ever leaves the customer premise. This information is pulled from the local database and displayed in a single window interface to the reps. The reps are unaware of where different pieces of information are coming from.

A cloud based offering that uses centralized servers instead of V-TAG, has to upload sensitive data to cloud before it can be displayed to reps for incoming or outgoing calls. This not only causes additional delays, it often violates a company’s security and compliance policies.

At 3CLogic, we often hear how the users are pleasantly surprised when they see the customer information on the screen instantly, much in advance of their answering the call or the call getting connected. On hearing this, we all have that familiar smile on our faces because we know that these are some of the benefits of a distributed architecture like V-TAG. Additionally, Call center managers and administrators can sleep peacefully because their security policies are not compromised.  What’s not to like about this?