New resource addresses growing compliance and architecture gaps in voice-based payment processing across utilities, healthcare, and financial services

INDIANAPOLIS, March 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SharpenCX, a cloud-based contact center platform built for AI-powered voice automation, today released its 2026 Buyer’s Guide to Secure Pay-by-Phone Payment Capture, a practical framework for regulated-industry organizations evaluating or modernizing their phone payment infrastructure.

The guide arrives as AI voice adoption accelerates across contact centers — and as that momentum introduces new questions about where secure payment capture belongs in the architecture. According to data cited in the guide, among customers who use IVR systems, two-thirds do so specifically to pay bills. That’s a high-intent transaction channel, and one that carries real compliance weight.

“As organizations invest in AI and digital self-service, it’s critical not to lose sight of how customers actually behave. In many industries, voice is the channel of choice for making time-sensitive payments,” said Tom Fisher, president of SharpenCX. “At Sharpen, we help organizations modernize without abandoning accessibility — making pay-by-phone secure, compliant, and easy for the customers who depend on it.”

What the Guide Covers

The 2026 Buyer’s Guide to Secure Pay-by-Phone Payment Capture addresses the architectural decisions, input method tradeoffs, and procurement questions that matter most for organizations processing large payment volumes over the phone. Key sections include:

The four most common misconceptions buyers bring to voice payment modernization — including why AI voice agents should not process card data directly
The compliance implications of agent-assisted payment capture, and what “PCI scope reduction” actually means in practice
How secure keypad-based (DTMF) payment masking works, and when Voice/ML input is and isn’t appropriate
How AI voice agents and secure IVR payment workflows should be orchestrated together
A procurement checklist of RFP questions organizations should ask any vendor

Why This Matters Now
Traditional agent-assisted payment capture carries risk that’s easy to underestimate. When customers read card numbers aloud and agents manually enter them into systems, organizations expand PCI scope, increase insider exposure, and create potential vulnerabilities in call recordings and QA archives.

SharpenCX’s pay-by-phone capabilities allow callers to enter payment information via keypad, keeping sensitive data masked from agents and transmitted securely to payment processors — without requiring transfer to a third-party IVR. The platform operates on a no-train, no-retain architecture: cardholder data is not stored, not used for model training, and not retained beyond the transaction.

As AI voice agents take on more of the conversational layer, this separation becomes more important, not less. A properly architected solution lets AI handle routing and intent — and hands off to a hardened payment environment when it counts.

Access the Guide

The 2026 Buyer’s Guide to Secure Pay-by-Phone Payment Capture is available at https://go.sharpencx.com/pay-by-phone-with-sharpen

About SharpenCX

SharpenCX is a customer experience platform designed for organizations where service, security, and compliance matter. The cloud-native solution integrates contact center operations, AI-enabled automation, and secure voice payment capabilities to help teams resolve complex customer interactions with confidence. SharpenCX supports regulated and high-stakes industries — including utilities, healthcare, and insurance — where reliability and risk reduction are essential. Learn more at sharpencx.com.