Call center agents are faced with a lot of responsibilities on a daily basis. Not only are they the first point of contact for customers, they’re also tasked with safely gathering and handling a lot of sensitive data. This means call center compliance training is non-negotiable.
Your employees must understand exactly how to protect customer data while adhering to all applicable laws and regulations. All-purpose training programs might cover some of this, of course, but it’s really important to dedicate some time to compliance specifically.
Let’s explore why contact center compliance is so critical and what you can do to deliver training that sticks.
The consequences of noncompliance are significant:
Morgan Stanley was penalized for $60 million in 2020 after being named in two class-action lawsuits as a result of data breaches in 2016 and 2019. Then, in 2022, they were fined an additional $35 million due to additional data security issues stemming from selling off decommissioned hard drives.
On the bright side, staying compliant does more than save you money (and some stress). It builds trust with customers, keeps your agents engaged—and more importantly, shows your business in a positive light.
Call center compliance training starts with establishing expectations and communicating clear rules, policies, and procedures to your agents. You need to teach your team:
Communicate transparently and make sure these guidelines are easy to access. Confusion is a threat to compliance and education is the antidote. When your staff understand the ‘why’ behind these regulatory demands, it becomes easier to stick with them.
Agents are on the front lines, so it’s essential they understand the laws and regulations that govern your industry. This includes data protection laws like GDPR and CCPA, on top of industry-specific items like TCPA or Do-Not-Call lists. Don’t neglect your own internal policies, either.
Make sure your call center training breaks down any jargon into practical steps and actions. Use real-world examples to show where these regulations apply and why they’re important for protecting the company, the customers, and the agents themselves.
Data breaches are growing more common, too. 2023 saw over 3,200 data breaches in the US—a 77% increase compared to 2022’s 1,802 breaches. Not to mention the average cost of a data breach coming in at an eye-watering $4.88 million.
Contact center compliance training should teach agents how to collect, store, and process customer information securely. This means understanding how to:
Regulations evolve, and your training programs need to keep up. Even if your teams are performing well and staying compliant, that doesn’t mean your staff will remember every little detail a couple of years down the line (especially if policies change).
If anything changes you need to communicate that to your team with fresh training and a review of prior learning. Even a quick refresher session once a year can go a long way to helping agents follow rules and meet expectations.
Managers and supervisors play a crucial role in maintaining and enforcing compliance standards, so it’s only natural that they need training as well. They must have sufficient knowledge to guide their staff and enforce the policies they’re supposed to uphold.
As with your agent training, education for managers and supervisors should cover any relevant information for your industry and region, and give leaders the skills to pass this knowledge on to their teams. Ideally, you should also teach them how to keep an eye out for risks and red flags in the workplace.
QA is a powerful tool for monitoring and evaluating your agents, and it goes beyond just checking for script adherence and satisfactory customer experiences. It helps you keep on top of every aspect of call center agent performance, including regulatory compliance.
With a solid QA process in place, you can flag risky behavior and potential noncompliance before it happens. Then, you can use the information you collected to give constructive feedback and develop training sessions to mitigate future risk.
Plus, with AI-powered quality assurance tools now available, you can significantly expand your QA coverage so nothing slips through the cracks.
Training isn’t one-size-fits-all (not everyone learns or retains information the same way, of course). Instead of relying on the same stiff training course, try shaking it up to get your agents engaged instead of zoning out. You can try a variety of methods, such as:
You can even try real-time, on-the-job training to keep your agents aware of the risks. AI tools can help flag dangerous interactions so managers or supervisors can intervene to prevent a slip-up or an escalation.
Compliance training should be accessible to everyone, including agents with disabilities or those who speak different languages. Make sure your training materials meet accessibility standards by providing features such as:
This should extend to software or online platforms you include in your training processes, too. Accessibility improves comprehension, and when every agent has equal access to resources, your compliance efforts will make a bigger impact.
It’s likely that scorecards are already a part of your process, but tailoring them for compliance (with critical fail measures and auto-fail questions, for example) can help keep catch lapses, risky behaviors, and potential instances of noncompliance.
Plus, by stressing the importance of adherence in your scorecard design, you further cement the idea in the minds of your employees, reminding them of their regulatory obligations.
Technology can help modernize your call center compliance training strategy, making it easier to deliver and more accessible for agents.
For example, adding AI to your QA process can help automate the evaluation process, expanding your coverage so you get up to 100% interaction coverage. This minimizes the risk of missing errors and makes report-building more straightforward.
Another example is adding a learning management system (LMS) to your contact center tech stack. An integrated LMS alongside your QA software will enable:
Don’t forget to build and regularly update your knowledge base either—this will give staff easy access to a central hub full of useful information.
Scripts are useful guidelines for customer support conversations, but they’re excellent tools for ensuring compliance, too. A well-crafted script can serve as a touchstone for agents when they find themselves in a pressure situation with a frustrated customer or a difficult query.
Be sure to regularly update your scripts in accordance with any new policies or legislation, and don’t forget to ask your agents for their feedback. After all, they’re the ones actually using the scripts, so they’ll have unique insights into how effective they are on the ground.
While there are universal standards, it’s essential to zero in on the specific requirements that matter most for your organization. Think GDPR in Europe, HIPAA for healthcare, TCPA if you’re in telemarketing, and PCI DSS for handling payments. Getting specific will help your agents understand exactly what rules they must follow.
When you’re running a business that deals with sensitive information and customer data, compliance is non-negotiable. And call centers, at the forefront of these types of businesses, are awash with this kind of sensitive data.
But if you want to grow, these challenges will grow with you. More moving parts, new channels of communication, additional staff—all of these things add extra risk. If you fail to address the risks, you’re open to fines, legal action, brand damage, and more.
Thankfully, a robust quality assurance function can massively offset these concerns. Your QA process does more than just track agent adherence, it provides vital data to inform and support your compliance training.
Scorebuddy can help by giving you an AI-powered QA platform with:
Reach out to us today for a demo and strengthen your compliance training.
