Plum Voice Launches SecureAssistant, A Virtual Payment Agent That Conferences Into Calls to Descope Contact Centers from PCI-DSS

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Plum Voice, the leading communications platform-as-a-service (cPaaS) provider for voice technologies, today announced the release of SecureAssistant, an offering that descopes the contact center from PCI-DSS requirements while optimizing consumer satisfaction and minimizing the need for disruptive technology changes.

SecureAssistant is a PCI-compliant virtual agent that can be conferenced into calls to accept and mask sensitive payment details while the agent remains on the line to maintain a cohesive consumer experience. By masking transmission of the consumer's payment information to the live agent or to contact center equipment such as call recorders, SecureAssistant assures that neither the agent nor any part of the contact center technology receives sensitive payment data. The contact center is therefore descoped from PCI-DSS requirements, thus creating PCI-DSS compliance for an enterprise contact center in a cost-efficient manner.

Over 40 billion credit card transactions are processed annually, and contact centers handle about 4 percent. There is growing pressure to improve the security of payments involving contact center agents, particularly as PCI-DSS standards become stricter and as agents increasingly work at home.

The Plum Voice cloud has been PCI certified since 2013 and handles many millions of payment dialogs annually.

"The secure Plum Voice cloud has long been the preferred platform for many payment processors and enterprises looking to automate sensitive voice dialogs such as those related to payments," notes Matt Ervin, CEO of Plum Voice. "SecureAssistant lets us introduce the security of automation into a dialog where the agent remains on the line talking to the consumer throughout the call. So we are synergistically pairing live human customer service with AI voice automation."

Plum SecureAssistant can be conferenced into a phone call by a simple command from the agent. SecureAssistant then communicates with the consumer or the agent via a conversational interface, supplemented by touchtone detection for rapid input. Once SecureAssistant is invoked, the agent cannot hear sensitive information provided by the consumer such as credit card numbers, but the agent can hear and participate in the rest of the conversation. Importantly, the agent can remain on the line after payment is processed to attend to other issues.

SecureAssistant can be set up as a cloud or on-premise solution.

About:
Plum Voice offers a cloud platform and templated applications that enable enterprises and VARs to quickly deploy conversational voice applications for phone interactions. These solutions modernize voice interactions and reduce operational costs while improving customer satisfaction. Plum Voice products support a variety of voice technologies, including IVR, speech recognition, conversational AI, and voice dialog analytics.

At Plum Voice, we care about making voice communications work better. We do this by providing technology that optimizes the setup and management of mission-critical voice automation. The heart of the Plum cloud consists of programmable platforms that empower our customers to create safe and effective telephone interactions, which ultimately enables business processes to take place in an efficient manner by phone. We help connect people to the information they need, anytime and from anywhere.

Learn more and sign up for free access to Plum's platforms at http://www.plumvoice.com.

SOURCE Plum Voice