You reap what you sow

Many people think of farmers as hat-wearing, sun-wrinkled men with beards who get about on tractors and in bakkies, their wives seated neatly beside them with baskets on their laps. Or they may think they're simply the epicentre of the latest Julius Malema court controversy.

But really, they're still the same people they were centuries ago: they plant seeds, nurture them and reap the crop at the right time to feed the community. They are crucial to the community's well being, because without food, everybody would starve.

Good call centre managers and operators are just like farmers - not that they necessarily wear hats, grow beards, and drive their wives in bakkies - but they sow seeds, nurture them, and harvest the rewards. This is particularly the case as new legislation is enacted, which is the latest in a long string of related legislation, standards and recommendations.

The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) has ploughed into the call centre landscape in SA and will quickly cast a trench between those who act to meet its stipulations and those who keep their roots in the past. But considering it in isolation, since it is only the latest in a series of regulations and standards designed to shift the balance of power from businesses to consumers, is probably not the most enlightened approach.

The CPA, among other things, aims to promote more responsible consumer behaviours. It seeks to establish standards for consumer protection. But, more significantly to the call centre market, it wants to prohibit unfair marketing and business practices and better protect consumers from exploitation or abuse.

Many organisations use call centres as the primary point of contact with their clients and customers, and so the effects for call centres will unfold in all of their interactions with clients that are governed by their internal processes and procedures.

Those processes and procedures for call centres focused on telemarketing or promotions, for example, include the advice they render to consumers, the length of contracts they offer consumers, and the financial impact and process associated with the seven-day cooling off period that consumers now have.

The services that call centres render are also subject to scrutiny and should not cause delay to consumers. Tracking numbers, adherence to service level agreements, efficiency and other performance metrics will all require a renewed focus from call centre operators, and policies and procedures must be refined with scripts that conform to the new legal requirements.

Good call centre managers and operators are just like farmers.

Ralph Smit is executive of governance and compliance at Bytes Connect.

Another piece of legislation that heavily cratered the call centre landscape includes the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act of 2002.

It regulates transactions with suppliers and service providers, which covers an exceptionally broad array of call centre activities such as outbound telesales, inbound support queries, post-sales activity, order fulfilment, invoicing, end-user payment processing, business process outsourcing, and more.

All of that must be assessed in terms of governance, risk, compliance and now, with the arrival of the CPA, it may all have to be reassessed.

The payment card industry has introduced data security standards (PCI DSS) to ensure that all cardholder data is always stored, processed and transmitted securely. This applies to all businesses and organisations involved in the processing, storing and transmitting of cardholder data.

The Protection of Personal Information (PPI) Act deals with the protection of private and personal data. The Act applies to all businesses that process personal information such as names, addresses, e-mail addresses, ID numbers, employment history, health data and the like. Non-compliance with the provisions of the Act may result in criminal fines, civil liability and complaints to the regulator.

Call centres must heed the eight principles of the Act:

* Accountability
* Processing limitation
* Purpose specification:
* Define, explicitly, what the person's details will be used for
* Let the person know
* Keep the person's information only for as long as it is required

* Purpose limitation: the company may only use a person's details for the purpose which has been stated and communicated to the person

* Information quality
* Openness
* Security safeguards
* Data subject participation

An interesting perspective is King III, which suggests the board now assumes accountability for IT. If a company has outsourced its IT delivery, it must ensure its outsource partner is aligned with the new CPA and other legislation and industry standards when delivering services to customers. That's because the accountability remains with the company, so if it is smart, it will regularly audit its outsource partner.

And so will reap wisely, having sown wisely.