Outsourcing: 6 Tips to Keep Your Customer Data Safe

If you’re outsourcing tasks that are related to marketing, customer support, and the like, you’ll come across the inevitable need of having to relay some critical customer data.

In relaying sensitive customer details, though, you also need to ensure that it remains secure and intact in the process.

To help protect your customer data, here are six tips that you can use.

1. Work with reliable and trustworthy BPOs.

Don’t hesitate to probe into your prospect BPO partner’s profile as deeply as you can to ensure the organization’s trustworthiness and information security.

Look into reviews about the outsourcing company and news of data breaches that the BPO firm may have experienced.

In your dialogues with the agency, take time to ask as well about the client security measures and mechanisms employed.

In this way, you can adequately evaluate the robustness of the BPO’s IT structure that will handle your customer data.

2. Employ safe data transmission channels.

When storing and transmitting customer data to the outsourcing company, you need to employ messaging platforms and apps with end-to-end encryption.

You also have to use application layer firewalls and database monitoring gateways. 

These mechanisms can help safeguard your data from its delivery to receipt by the BPO service provider.

3. Keep your cybersecurity mechanisms updated.

Both you and your BPO service provider must install and update defense mechanisms, like firewalls, and anti-virus and anti-malware software programs.

Keeping these updated can help strengthen IT defenses against harmful online and offline components and threats.

Periodical patch management and security audits of applications, networks, and databases are also a must to safeguard your customer data.

4. Validate the frequency of staff training.

Staff training is vital in ensuring the safety of customer data. After all, some cyber threats, like email phishing, can take ill advantage of the recipient’s ignorance.

Numerous data breaches are also due to human error and negligence, which can stem from the lack of sufficient awareness about preventing cyber attacks.

That’s why, to keep your customer details safe, validate from your BPO vendor if and how frequently supervisors conduct staff training on cybersecurity and special data handling. 

5. Enforce intellectual property protection.

Before availing of the BPO’s data mining call services, be sure to check if the company has established protocols for protecting intellectual property.

Explain with the outsourcing firm your policies for intellectual property and data privacy in depth, and agree on following these rules diligently. 

6. Require leak-free traffic.

To keep your customer data from possibly leaking out of your BPO partner’s data channels, you need to require safe outbound traffic and emails.

Validate the capacity of the outsourcing firm to ensure leak-free traffic and frequency of monitoring. 

Should there be any suspected agents in data leaks and breaches, supervisors must also observe ready measures, such as the authorization to check sent emails.

What Now?

We at Executive Boutique Call Center value the safety of our clients’ customer data. 

When you outsource our services, you can rest assured that this asset stays secure with our reliable experts, technologies, and defense measures.

Reach out to us when you’re ready to outsource and work with a Philippines business process outsourcing company you can trust with your customer data.