Stratcom has substantially raised the level of our credit card security by implementing  a new cutting-edge  telemarketing dialer.

Among the many changes that Stratcom  adapted to during the pandemic, working from home was certainly one of the biggest.  For our telemarketing staff, this meant learning how to recruit and train new callers remotely.  Our managers also had to figure out how to best supervise callers virtually.  While challenging, these measures  allowed Stratcom to continue to operate  during this COVID-19 pandemic.  With charities feeling the impact of COVID-19 from the absence of face-to-face and event fundraising, Stratcom’s telephone services proved – and are continuing to prove  to be —  vital for charity fundraisers.

In 2020, Stratcom recognized our call centres would not re-open for the foreseeable future and  we decided to upgrade our predictive dialer platform.  A telephone dialer is  hardware and software that  automatically dials numbers from a list and manages the associated donor data.  

Now with the successful upgrade, credit cards numbers  no longer need to be captured verbally over the phone.  With this Agent Assisted IVR solution, donors can use the keypad on their phone to input their credit card numbers instructed by our fundraisers while our fundraisers remain on the line for reassurance. Our fundraisers can not hear the touch tone and they can only see the last four digits of the card number for verification purpose upon successful capture.  This adds a higher level of security for card numbers in the home environment.  All Stratcom processes meet the standards of compliance of  the Payment Card Industry Security Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

If there is one thing we’ve  learned during this pandemic, it is that the future is uncertain.  However, our improved  credit card security means at least one thing is certain: whether working from home or in a call centre setting, donor credit card numbers are secure at Stratcom.