Why businesses need to take their role as stewards of customer data seriously

Call Center Sales Pro (CCSP) is a call center and answering service provider based in Tennessee. That said, most of the senior team is not based in Tennessee. The team spans from California to Chicago to New York and they have offices around the country, so they had to figure out how remote was going to work right from the get-go. This meant they were well set up for shifting work conditions during pandemic lockdowns. "If you're a small business, there's going to be some normalcy in 2021, but don't think everything is just going to go back to the way it used to be. Any holes in your business caused by the pandemic could open up again," said Marc Fishman, director of sales and marketing for CCSP.

With this in mind, CCSP approached these new challenges head on, under the assumption that any problems that were revealed by COVID restrictions would remain even as work returned to a semblance of normalcy. "Every day we're trying to find new and smarter ways to use Zoho to capture and give us the data we need. Being able to respond to things quickly means we can think clearer when problem solving," said Fishman.

The importance of this responsiveness became even clearer when CCSP was put in a situation where they didn't have access to the tools they normally relied on. "Privacy and data security is important to us in the same way it's important to any business, plus since we work with medical and legal services, we have to meticulously care for the data and maintain HIPAA compliance. It's very important to us because we are stewards of that data for our customers," said Fishman. This meant that CCSP took it very seriously when some of their brand sites were hacked.

Holdovers from previous work processes, several of CCSPs brand websites were not originally hosted on Zoho Sites. All of these sites that were not hosted on Zoho were hacked in the summer of 2020. "All of my brand sites that were not on Zoho sites got hacked. Now our marketing is downloading our Zoho sites to a zip file and moving them to Workdrive and we're slowly moving all of the other brand sites to Zoho, trusting in our own experience that Zoho is secure," said Fishman. No data was breached and CCSP was quickly able to regain control of the websites, but it made it clearer than ever that consolidating all of their holdings into a system they trusted was a necessity.

By keeping their data on Zoho, a company CCSP trusts to keep it safe, CCSP is also able to get insight into weak points and fix problems faster. The faster the response, the more they can protect the customer data that they are so committed to caring for. Fishman said, "I get to worry less about pushing pixels and doing things ad hoc and focusing more on strategic planning and following those plans through. In 2020, everything was reactive. In 2021, we might be lucky enough to work with some foresight."

Zoho takes security and privacy very seriously, which just means it can take some of that responsibility off of CCSP's shoulders. "Zoho does things correctly with password storage and resets. It's easy for me to lock things down and see what we need to worry about," said Fishman. He hasn't spent much time at all worrying about Zoho's use of CCSP's data because, as he said, he doesn't have to. "It's a sign of my own youthful exuberance that I wouldn't expect Zoho to do anything other than exactly what Zoho is doing. You guys open the door for us, toss us the keys, and go on your merry way," he said.

Moving forward, the brand websites will all move to Zoho Sites so CCSP will be able to respond to issues faster than ever before. As CCSP can lean more on Zoho's security measures and tools, Fishman can now focus on cleaning up operations instead of having to tackle issues as they come. This holistic approach to business management lets CCSP look to the future and build out a solid process that won't be rattled by shifting requirements and expectations.