BCH Digital User Reviews: UK Fees & Prices

BCH Digital is an interactive voice response service provider or just an IVR service provider for short. These are essentially phone lines that customers can call in order to get in contact with a member of a company’s support team, or an automated response system.

The support team agents can instruct the customers on how to make payments by using the chosen payment method of the company and answer any questions that the customers might have. The automated response system can also direct the customers, although both the instructions and the answers to any questions that they might have will be prerecorded and limited.

All of the services are payment card industry (PCI) compliant, meaning that all of the data your customers share with you will be encrypted and protected against data leaks or malicious hacking attacks.

BCH Digital is the best option for companies that are looking for an efficient way to receive payments from customers. The entire process can be either automated or handled by agents who’ll ensure that the customers know exactly what they need to do.

Sections

Key Features

Both the manual response and automated response services that BCH Digital offers come with a lot of the same features and benefits. We’ll mention which features are included in which service, but first, let’s cover the most important features.

PCI Compliance – As we’ve already mentioned before, the payment card industry compliance is one of the biggest selling points of BCH Digital. There are 12 operational and technical requirements that need to be fulfilled for the PCI compliance to be granted, and all of the services on the site fulfil these requirements.

BCH Digital is a PCI-DSS Level 1 provider that externally audits the security processes every year and scans for system vulnerabilities every quarter. PCI compliance puts your customers at ease by ensuring that their credit and debit card data is secure, and it helps minimise any risk of lawsuits that might result from private information leaks.

Handset & Softphones – The company provides you with Yealink or Polycom handsets that are preprogrammed to work in tandem with the BCH Digital IVR services. However, if you want to use your own headset, then the company will provide you with accurate instructions on how to go about setting it up.

Alternatively, you’re also given the option to download the Softphone app and simply use your headset in tandem with the app in order to manage customers. The only downside is that depending on the headset in question, you might not be able to map any hotkey functions or use certain features that we mention in this article.

Call Recording and Monitoring – All of the calls that are made between you and your clients can be recorded and stored for as long as 12 months in online storage. The storage period can be extended to 7 years, although that extension will cost you extra. You can also monitor the calls as they’re happening to make sure that your agents are doing everything by the book.

The audit log is easy to navigate, and you can sort all of your saved recordings based on the date and the time of day, the agent that took the call, or any serial number that you might have assigned to the recording. Speaking of which, you can also add any label or description that you want to your recordings so that you can keep track of them.

Call Conferencing – You can add as many people as you want to your calls. This will allow agents to add their colleagues to a call in case they can’t help a client by themselves. This feature is also particularly useful when it comes to training your agents, as it allows you to monitor their performance and take over if there’s an issue.

Inbound Call Management – Calls can be routed directly to your agents or your customers can be sent to a queue where they’ll be asked to wait until someone is available to take their call. Prerecorded messages can be added for the customers waiting in the queue, and they’ll also have the option to leave the queue at any time and simply leave a voice message.

You can select which agent gets which customers, and you’ll also be able to set priorities on the customers’ calls so those who’ve been waiting the longest get bumped up the waiting list quicker. Holidays and work times can also be added so that the customers are told if the service is available at the moment or not.

Inbound Numbering – You’ll be given a large selection of different phone numbers that you can choose from. BCH Digital can provide you with both standard international numbers, as well as international freephone numbers. The freephone numbers are free for your customers if they’re calling from a landline or a mobile phone, but that does mean that you’ll foot the bill yourself.

You can select from the 600+ UKs geographic area codes, as well as non-geographic numbers such as 0800 and 0330. If even that isn’t enough, then you’ll also be able to request a new number and have it implemented in a matter of seconds.

User’s Portal – This feature gives your agents access to useful tools that can help them do their job much more optimally. They’ll be able to check the recent call history, look at the status and availability of any colleague, access the company contact list, and much more. The User portal also allows the agents to configure multiple personal extensions to their preference. This includes headsets, softphones, and even mobiles.

SMS Messaging – This feature is technically part of the User’s portal and it allows your agents to send messages to your customers, which is very useful for sending out follow-up messages and confirming dates or appointments with clients, among other things.

You can either create new messages each time use the templates you’ve created. Additionally, you can also receive SMS messages through this feature, although a virtual number will have to be created first where the messages will be stored.

Hold & Transfer – You and your agents will be able to set hotkeys on the headset or the softphone that will allow you to either transfer or place your customers on hold. When transferring customers, you’ll also be given a choice of placing the customer on hold until a certain agent is available, or simply sending them over to any available agent.

The hotkeys can also be set up to start a conference call between several agents. And you can even place the customer on hold, call the agent yourself, and then return the customer to the call, although that’ll require more than one input.

Report Suite – The report suite allows you to generate a large number of different reports for your business. All of the metrics and the parameters on the reports are fully adjustable and you can change them however you want. You can easily check the average number of calls that you receive on a daily basis, the average length of the calls, your most active agent, and much more.

The reports are generated in a matter of seconds and can either be created manually or set to automatic generation. The automatically generated reports can be set to trigger on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or anything in-between.

Multi-Factor Authentication – Logging into the service is incredibly secure as you’ll be able to set up several layers of protection to make sure that no one can use your account. You’ll need to enter an API username and password, and set up an SMS code message to be sent to your phone or mail so that you need to input the given info to log into your account.

There are several other safety precautions that you can take as well, and aside from the password, they can all be toggled on or off, depending on the level of security that you’re looking for.

Remote Agents – You can set remote agents to deal with customer payments directly. The customers will be instructed on the steps that they need to take by the agent, after which they’ll be transferred to a payment portal where they can enter their card details. The agent will be with the customer every step of the way, but they’ll only be able to hear them and see transactions once they’ve been processed.

Hybrid Automated Payments – You’ll be able to keep certain services on your site manual and automate the rest. Customers can still be channelled to a remote agent that explains what they need to do, but afterwards, the service will become automated and the agent will be transferred over to another customer.

Support – If you’re unclear on any of the features, what they do or how they work, then you can always consult the support page of BCH Digital. This page contains extensive info on every aspect of the site and the services that it provides, and you can easily navigate through all of the articles by using the search option at the top.

Core PCI-DSS Compliant Services

BCH Digital has 4 IVR services that you can pick from.

Automated Payment Lines

As the name suggests, online payments are all automated in order to streamline the process. This is the ideal service for any business that’s looking to provide their customers with a decent payment service, but can’t or doesn’t want to hire agents to take care of the payments directly.

This automated service comes with Level 1 PCI DSS compliance to ensure that all of the customer data is secure. The service is user-friendly and it reduces the possibility of human error. It also reduces the need to have your employees man the phones and allows you to assign them other tasks.

On top of that, you get a transaction manager that instantly makes records of all of the transactions that are made through the automated payment lines. You can choose to send these records directly to your CRM system, you can pile all of the daily transactions into one batch, and change many of the viewing and categorisation preferences so that the files are easy to navigate.

The service also comes with the following benefits:

Fully automated, 24/7 availability
Seamless integration with your PSP
Online management tools
Multilingual support
SMS receipts for customers
Tokenisation for future payments
Reduced PCI-DSS scope
MCC 6012 compliance

Live Agent Solutions

This service allows your agents to process payments while on a call with customers. The agents can direct your customer and explain the payment process while staying in constant communication with them. The card details themselves won’t be visible to the agent and the service comes with Level 1 PCI DSS compliance, so your customers don’t have to worry about their data getting leaked.

The customers will be able to choose which agent they want to talk to and the agent will be able to set up recurring payments for the customer so they don’t have to manually go through the whole payment process every time.

There are several other features as well, which include the following:

Integrates with your existing payment provider
Reduces the scope of PCI DSS
Works with existing hardware
Retain your existing telephone numbers
Minimal agent training required
Available for inbound & outbound calls
Comprehensive online transaction reporting
Create recurring payments
Integrates into your CRM solutions
Use tokenisation for future processing
Configurable customer data fields
Agent merchant selection

Pay by Link

This service is pretty similar to the live agent solutions service that we just went over. The customers will contact the agent online, through a phone call or SMS, and then the agent will help the customer send in their payment.

However, instead of talking your customers through a lengthy payment process and the inputs that are required to make a transaction, all the agent needs to do now is send the customers a link.

The link in question is fully secure and the customers are automatically taken to an easy-to-use payment portal where they can make their payments. The customer’s card details are kept private, but the agents get an immediate notification on whether the payment has been processed or rejected.

Additionally, the customer data is also stored in the system, so the next time a payment needs to be made, the link will already contain their payment details so they simply need to confirm the payment for it to go through.

This service comes with the following features:

Fully PCI compliant
No customer card details enter your agent’s homes or your premises
The payment link can be sent through SMS, web chat, social media, WhatsApp, and other media channels
The agent gets notified if a payment has been authorised or declined
An agent can take payment over a live phone call via softphone
The only equipment required is a screen and an internet connection; no new hardware is required
Take payments from any location and at any time

Hosted PBX

The final payment service that BCH Digital offers exclusively takes and processes payments online. This IP-based phone system is made to accommodate small and medium-sized businesses that have between 3 and 250 customers at any one time.

The service can’t take any more than the specified number, and other customers won’t be able to access the payment portals until a spot has opened up in the queue. The service is also affected by the number of customers on the line, so a strong internet connection is recommended unless you want your customers to be lagging and sounding robotic.

Aside from all of the payments being made online, there’s little difference between this service and the others. You can send your customers link payments, reroute them to a live agent, or automate the payment process entirely.

This service comes with the following features:

Call queuing & hunt-group distribution modes
Disaster recovery switching
Cold, warm & conference transfers
User-based call recording
User dashboard control
Live call monitoring
Preview dialler
Personalised voicemails
Call scheduling for working hours & special dates
IVR call flow builder
Full call reporting suite & configurable wallboards
Two-way SMS messaging
Level 1 PCI DSS compliant
Integrated with HubSpot

Prices/Fees

While BCH Digital has a number of useful features and a wide variety of different services, one of the biggest flaws of the company is that the price of these services isn’t mentioned anywhere. However, in fairness to the company, there’s a good reason why.

When it comes to phone services, there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. Factors like if the customer is calling from an international number, if you’re using a freephone and need to cover the cost of the call, which service you want to get for your business, and so on.

On the one hand, not having a general idea of the prices isn’t ideal and you can’t really tell whether or not you can afford the services that are being offered.

On the other hand, this issue can be solved pretty quickly if you simply contact the company directly and have them tell you everything you want to know about the prices, services, and any other questions you might have.

It takes a bit more work, but you’ll get a much more accurate estimate of the actual fees that you’ll need to cover and a better explanation of the services you’ll be using.

Company History

BCH Digital was started in 2001 by a dedicated team of tech enthusiasts, with the goal to create payment solutions and pipelines that any company can use to manage their customer transactions.

The company has its headquarters in Portland St, Manchester, England. The company employs somewhere between 10 and 20 people, and in the 2 decades since its inception, it’s managed to generate somewhere between 5 and 10 million dollars in revenue.

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