From Audit-Ready to Audit-Free: How to Fully Descope with Eckoh

Preparing for PCI-DSS audits can be time-consuming, costly, and stressful. But what if you could eliminate the burden altogether? In this blog, we explore how Eckoh's innovative secure payment solutions help organizations move from being simply "audit-ready" to "audit-free" by fully descoping their contact center environments. Learn how removing sensitive payment data from your systems not only reduces compliance scope and cost but also enhances customer trust and protects your brand from growing cyber threats. Discover how Eckoh empowers businesses to simplify compliance while strengthening security. 

The high cost of compliance 

Every organization that handles payment card data must meet the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). These requirements are essential for protecting customer data, but compliance can come at a steep price, particularly for contact centers. 

The PCI-DSS framework includes 12 core requirements and over 300 individual controls. If cardholder data is present in your systems, all of them can apply. Even when you believe your environment is secure, you still need to prove it through annual audits, extensive documentation, regular vulnerability scans, and third-party assessments from Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs). 

For contact centers, compliance is especially painful. Payment data may pass through call recordings, agent desktops, chat transcripts, CRM systems, and more. To protect that data, organizations must: 

• Lock down agent desktops and endpoints 
• Segment networks 
• Implement strict access controls 
• Pause call recordings 
• Monitor homeworking agents 
• Run frequent penetration tests 
• Train staff in security awareness 
• Maintain audit logs and evidence trails 

Audits: expensive, disruptive, and never-ending 

PCI-DSS audits are more than a checklist; they're a significant financial and operational commitment. Depending on the size and complexity of your environment, the annual cost of a PCI-DSS audit can range from $50,000 to over $350,000. This includes technology upgrades, internal resources, third-party assessments, and remediation. 

And these figures don't account for the indirect costs: internal staff time, disruption to IT projects, delays in rolling out new services, or the pressure of keeping remote agents compliant. 

By contrast, fully descoping your environment, so that no sensitive payment data enters your systems at all, removes the need for this annual audit cycle almost entirely. With no data to protect, the burden of PCI-DSS largely disappears. 

What does it mean to be "audit-free"? 

"Audit-free" doesn't mean ignoring PCI-DSS; it means removing your systems entirely from PCI scope so the vast majority of requirements no longer apply. No cardholder data in your systems = no audit burden. 

With the right partner, it's possible to descope 90–100% of your environment. That means: 

• No expensive annual audits 
• No need for third-party QSAs 
• No logging and tracking of payment data 
• No lockdowns or surveillance for remote agents 
• No disruptive compliance reviews every time you scale or change providers 

You move from spending months gathering evidence to spending minutes confirming you're out of scope. 

Eckoh's approach: Complete descope, complete confidence 

At Eckoh, we help businesses descope fully from PCI-DSS through secure payment solutions for voice and digital channels. Our technologies prevent payment data from ever entering your environment, while keeping the customer experience seamless. 

CallGuard: Secure Voice Payments 

CallGuard lets your agents take payments over the phone without hearing or seeing any sensitive card details. Customers enter their card numbers using their phone keypad, and Eckoh masks the tones in real time, keeping the data out of your call recordings, CRM, and network entirely. The agent remains on the line for support, but stays out of PCI scope. 

ChatGuard: Secure Digital Payments 

With ChatGuard, secure payment links are sent directly in chat messages, letting customers complete transactions in a secure, PCI-compliant web page. No sensitive data passes through your chat systems, apps, or agent interfaces. The data flows straight from customer to payment gateway, keeping your systems out of scope. 

The compliance and security payoff 

By removing your systems from PCI scope, you're not just avoiding audit stress; you're removing the risk of an expensive data breach while showing your customers you take their security seriously. Here's what descoping with Eckoh delivers: 

• Huge cost savings – Descoping means that you can eliminate the need for annual audits, reduce internal workload, and avoid costly technical controls. Organizations often see audit cost reductions of 40–70%. 
• Massive time savings – Compliance work that once took months now takes days or disappears altogether. Descoping from audit requirements frees up your IT, compliance, and operations teams to focus on value-added work. 
• Lower risk, higher resilience – Removing sensitive data from your environment is the most effective way to protect it. You drastically reduce the chances of breach, internal misuse, or accidental exposure. 
• Greater customer trust and an enhanced customer experience – Customers expect secure, frictionless experiences. By protecting their data without interrupting the interaction, you strengthen loyalty and brand reputation. 
• Future-proofed compliance – PCI-DSS 4.0 and other regulatory frameworks will only grow in complexity. By descoping now, you sidestep future headaches and reduce your exposure to change. 

Ready to move from audit-ready to audit-free? 

If you're still investing time, money, and energy in PCI audits year after year, it's time to consider a smarter approach. With Eckoh, you can eliminate sensitive payment data from your environment, simplify your operations, and get back time and budget to focus on what matters. 

Let us help you move from audit-ready to audit-free, and never look back.