Frequently Asked Questions
PCI Compliance Questions
PCI applies to ANY organization or merchant, regardless of size or number of transactions, that accepts, transmits or stores any cardholder data.
Yes. All businesses that store, process or transmit payment cardholder data must be PCI Compliant.
Yes. By just using a third-party company, does not exclude a company from PCI compliance. It may cut down on their risk exposure and consequently reduce the effort to validate compliance.
All merchants will fall into one of the four merchant levels based on Visa transaction volume over a 12-month period. Transaction volume is based on the aggregate number of Visa transactions. Level One is the highest PCI Compliance level processing over 6M Visa transactions per year.
Fines can range from $5,000 to $100,000 per month for PCI compliance violations.
The PCI SSC defines ‘cardholder data’ as the full Primary Account Number (PAN) or the full PAN along with any of the following:
- Cardholder name
- Expiration date
- Service code
Merchant is defined as any entity that accepts payment cards containing the logos of any of the five members of PCI SSC (American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard or Visa) as payment for goods and/or services.
Payment Gateways connect a merchant to the bank or processor that is acting as the front-end connection to the Card Brands.
Every 90 days.
Yes, home users are the most vulnerable.
Not at all. When your customers call a toll-free number, enter their account information, and make a payment. Some over-the-phone payment systems can even store the customer’s information based on the phone number they are calling from. This means future transactions take less time. Some services can even allow customers to take a picture of their bill, and pay. The payment is then verified, accepted, and immediately applied to your customer’s account. IVR Tech provides customized reporting that allows you to see exactly when your customer paid, the form of payment used, and the results of the transaction.
Call Tracking Questions
Call tracking is the process of attaching a unique phone number to a company’s advertising efforts. This allows a company to determine which marketing initiatives drives the greatest results.
Call tracking can measure the effective reach of a company’s campaigns. Analytic reporting can easily measure the effectiveness of where an ad is placed; be it TV, radio, online or on a billboard.
Your representative will provide better customer service when they get a head start on helping your customers. Your agent can find out who is calling ahead of time from a whisper message or a pop up on the screen. A whisper message can provide information such as:
- Where the customer is calling from
- Which of your campaigns they called in on
- A customer’s account number
When an agent knows who is calling, and why, it can reduce your customers waiting time by as much as 43%. This could also lower the cost of your call by as much as 35%.
A great feature to use in conjunction with analytics is call recording. Call recordings can be easily added to a report and linked to a recording of the call as it happened. Hearing how your sales representatives interact with customers will provide valuable insight that allows you to identify struggling reps and coach them to improve their performance.
Call tracking reports tell where customers were calling from, and which locations were contacted. This information can be quite valuable, especially if you have multiple locations.
Getting a lot of calls from a certain area? Call tracking reports can tell you which location they are reaching. The reports can also provide valuable insight as to where you may want to put your newest location.
Call tracking will also help determine peak calling hours. With this information, a business can dedicate staff members during these peak times. Are a lot of calls coming just before closing time? Perhaps hours should be shifted to avoid dead time.
This myth comes from the theory that Google would list multiple phone numbers for you for a search. As long as your call tracking numbers are not placed on your directory listings, or business profiles, this isn’t the case. We can work with you so that search engines will find the numbers you want your customers to call.
The answer is with Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI). This allows the user to connect to your business with one click. Unique call tracking phone numbers can also be placed on your website or landing page to help you find out how the visitor arrived to your page.
Your customers will still see your official phone number but, when they click to call, they’re actually clicking on a unique back-end click-to-call number. This unique phone number tracks that the call is coming from a mobile device.
With this method, call analytics track which campaign, keyword, app or search engine led the most consumers to your site. Each one of these tracked calls are placed in a report, and allow you to fine tune your campaign on Google or Bing. Using dynamic number insertion will also improve your SEO efforts.
Once it’s set up, call tracking is a self-service application. IVR Technology allows you to configure your call tracking application by logging on, selecting a number, and telling us where it should go.
Monthly reports are great at determining treads, but our reports allow your business to measure your results in real time. Then you can expand that report to see daily, weekly, monthly, or even seasonal treads.
In a typical campaign, we track:
- Total number of calls made by phone number
- Call date, time
- Dialed number and campaign information
- Caller’s location (name, address, if available)
- Call duration
- Call disposition and ranking
You can also opt for call recording. This allows for links of recorded phone calls to be placed directly into a report. With this a company can gain valuable insight in to how your customer service reps handle a call. Call recordings also serve an important training tool.
In short, you’ll want to put a phone number on everything. This includes, but is definitely not limited to, the following:
- Website / dynamic number insertion
- Landing pages
- Social media sites
- PPC ads
- Sales collateral
- Print ads
- Billboards
- Newspaper Ads
- Mobile App campaign
- On-the-go ads: moving billboards or on vehicles
At IVR Tech, we can provide call tracking reports in multiple formats:
- Excel, PDF, text or CSV
- API integration
- CRM integration
Call Tracking, provided by IVR Technology, is SaaS (Software as a service) There’s no need to install hardware, or worry about upgrading your systems to get set up. As soon as you have the number you want, you can get starting on advertising it.
- Track your ROI. Using unique, trackable phone numbers proves which of your ads are profitable and which are not. This information allows you to increase and/or slash your ad spend as necessary.
- Track multi-channel marketing. Understand how each of your marketing channels performs and gain a complete understanding of what generates phone calls.
- Determine your peak calling hours. This sounds basic, but it’s important. Call tracking gives you the ability to pinpoint the exact time and day that you get the most calls, and vice versa. This allows you to staff your office and delegate tasks appropriately.
IVR Payments By Phone Questions
IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. Learn more on our IVR Systems page.
Consumers love companies that will work with them & can provide exactly what they want, and have the ability to check their balances to be sure their accounts are up to date. It’s convenient, fast, and allows customers more ways to make payments. Your business can also make sure that customers can receive a reminder by text, or email, to make their payment. As 90% of all text messages are read within 2 minutes of receipt, your customers will be more likely to make their payments on time. Best of all your customers can pay their bills 24/7.
Yes, The IVR system is PCI DSS Level-1 certified and utilizes a secure and encrypted channel for communication to the processing platforms. An additional security feature is that there is no human involvement in the collection of provocative payment card data, which eliminates any accidental or intentional breach due to call center operations.
Our system can take manage many calls simultaneously. We are set up and built to scale and are able to load balance our calls so customers never receive a busy signal and are connected nearly immediately.
All transactions occur in real-time and you will receive a confirmation number once the transaction is completed.
Payments can be made from checking/savings accounts and all major credit cards.
The system accepts payments up to $999.99 for credit card payments, and there is no limit for check/savings account payments.
In all cases, there is a per-transaction fee involved with every payment. You may choose to add a “convenience” fee to recoup this cost, however, IVR payments by phone are substantial cost-savings compared to a live attendant call.
We support more than fifty languages and dialects for speech-to-text and directed voice alpha-numeric recognition.
ACH/eChecks are considered a standard transaction and are billed at our normal per transaction rate. There are no other fees associated with accepting eChecks.
No. They should be certain that they intend to make a payment before doing so and that the amount is correct.
No. The IVR system provides the ultimate convenience to customers wanting to avoid long lines or waiting on hold. Since all functionality and integration with your customer records are built into the system, human intervention is not required.
Each customer will be assigned their own Dedicated Inbound Dialed (D.I.D.) or Toll-Free telephone number.
For input error, the caller can default to the beginning of the system (or transferred out to a customer service representative) at any time by pressing the * button. Additionally, while inputting CC #’s, if they strike the wrong number while entering the information we will prompt them to retry the numbers again up to 3 times before politely hanging up.
To see a complete call flow, with error trapping, in action, watch the video here: IVR Payments By Phone Call Flow: Video.
Yes. We can work with you to make modifications to the call flow prompts. If we do this during implementation, there is rarely an added cost. Post-implementation, we’d need to review the number of changes prior to determining the added cost, if any.
Your company should also show how flexible they are by offering alternative payment options. Some customers will still pay their bill by check. Your company can still accommodate customers who wish to use different methods to pay. However, having the Compass Payments Suite saves your customers money in the long run. Customers don’t have to buy stamps and envelopes, wait in line at the Post Office, and can check their balances easily.
Customers can check their account balance, verify their last payment, verify the amount due, and confirm the most recent amount billed if there are interfaces into the company’s back end accounting systems. Essentially anything that can be done on the telephone can be configured and/or programmed into the IVR Pay-by-phone system. Additional services can include store locations lookup with an option to “switch” to the local telephone number. This will require a statement of work and additional consultation and costs.
Yes, there is a separate fee for IVR Tech to integrate into any back-end systems to pull information from in real-time. However, our standard Compass Payments Suite offering does include access to our secure SFTP site to upload/download the information to ‘feed’ the pay-by-phone system and retrieve call reports.
Our development team works in 2-week sprints. Typically for standard call flows and SFTP file reconciliations, the turnaround time would be approximately 4 to 6 weeks for a new application. For integrated partners spinning up new IVR payments on their bill-pay platforms, the turnaround time is typically 2 to 3 days for standard implementations.
The cost is broken down into 4 elements, in most cases, the cost of each element is determined by the complexity of the application, payment volume, and call volume:
- One-time setup fee to develop the application
- Monthly hosting fee
- Per transaction
- Per minute fee.
A standard IVR pay by phone call typically runs about 2 minutes to complete.
A properly implemented and utilized IVR Pay-by-Phone system should allow you to certify that the Company does not store, process, or transmit payment card data over the telephone network. It will be up to the Company’s Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) to explain the actual impact to the Company’s compliance process to know for sure.
In order to process credit card payments, a service provider is required to have PCI certification. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) is an information security standard defined by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- Maintaining secure network systems
- Protecting, and encrypting, the data of our customers
- Log monitoring and management
- Keeping client information confident and secure
- Preventing traffic from known un-trusted sources (IPRM)
PCI-DSS requires an independent PCI qualified security assessor to validate and certify their system.
HIPAA Compliance Questions
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by Congress in 1996 to set a nationally accepted standard of regulations to keep to protect medical information and keep it confidential.
- Patients are able to find out who is able to receive and look at their medical information, as well as how this information may be used.
- Patients have the right to examine and obtain a copy of their health records.
- Individuals are able to control certain how their health information may be used or disclosed.
- Disclosure of information must follow a minimum necessary standard
Permission granted by individual
Health information may be granted to outside entities or individuals if granted by the individual. The individual must have the opportunity to agree or object to granting permission. However, an exception can be made if the individual is incapacitated, in an emergency situation, or disclosure is determined to be in the best interests of the individual as deemed by their professional judgment.
Text Enable Questions
No. Text-Enable is a completely independent service from your landline or toll free phone carrier. Please note, Text-Enable is a separate monthly charge not included in your telephone bill.
Not at all. Changes can be made via the web portal, or via an integrated API. Custom messaging and keywords can be set up based on the specific client needs.
No. This service is for peer-to-peer conversations between you and your customers. Texting is safeguarded by regulatory guidelines from several groups which we abide by in order to prevent SPAM abuse towards wireless subscribers. Text-Enable cannot be used for unwanted solicitation purposes. IVR Technology Group reserves the right to cancel any account that is in violation.
Before importing, all contacts first need to be entered into an Excel spreadsheet in a XLS or CSV file.
Text-Enable keeps a record of all inbound and outbound messages over a period of time.
Landline and toll free users can text any mobile number in the U.S. and Canada that has text messaging capabilities. Any mobile phone with a texting plan can be contacted via Text-Enable. You can also send and receive texts with other landline and toll free numbers that are text enabled.
No. Customers use the native texting app on their phone and interact with your business as they would send a text to a friend. Wireless subscribers are not required to download anything or adjust any system settings.
All a user would need to run TextEnable would be a dedicated phone number and access to an internet browser. All scheduling can be conducted on your computer or smartphone. TextEnable is supported across multiple internet browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc).