Customer support organizations handle a variety of sensitive information types, including customer financial information (e.g., credit card numbers and bank account details), personally identifiable information (e.g., addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses), protected health information (e.g., insurance information), passwords, and more. In addition, customer support organizations may also handle confidential product or service related information as well as information about customer preferences, behavior, and interests.

Customer support organizations can keep customer data secure by implementing best practices such as establishing a strict access control system that only allows customer success organizations to access and prohibits access by employees in other departments like engineering, human resources, etc. To further protect customer data, it’s a good idea to encrypt this sensitive information both in transit and at rest, store it securely by ensuring it can only be accessed by authorized personnel, implement automated security tools such as intrusion detection systems, and even maintain tight control over the physical environment holding this information, such as secure buildings and locked data centers.

The best way for customer support organizations to securely send and receive customer logs, configuration settings, and other sensitive customer usage information is to use a secure file sharing platform that is designed with enterprise-grade security protocols. This type of platform should be capable of performing data encryption at rest and in motion, using strong authentication protocols, and allowing only authorized users to access files. Access control policies can be set up to control who can view, download, or modify customer files.

Organizations should incorporate multi-factor authentication, identity access management (IAM), data encryption at rest and in motion, and access control policies to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access to customer logs and other customer data. Organizations should also regularly monitor and update their security protocols. It’s also a good idea to regularly back up customer data to ensure they are recoverable in the event of a ransomware attack.

The risks associated with customer support processes include data breaches stemming from cyberattacks like ransomware and phishing, and unauthorized access to customer files, leading to data leakage and a compliance violation. To avoid these and other risks, organizations should have a robust plan in place to protect customer data to ensure that only authorized customer support employees have access to customer content, and those staff members are properly trained in best-practice security protocols.

Compliance regulations for customer support organizations in the U.S. vary state to state but typically center around best practices for protecting customers’ personal information (e.g., HIPAA and FERPA). Organizations must ensure that their processes meet customer privacy and data collection standards, set by state or federal government. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are just a few examples of regulations that require customer support organizations and other employees to handle customer data in a manner that prioritizes data security and data privacy.