Securely and efficiently processing telephone orders

A method comprising:

• establishing a telephonic connection between a customer service representative of a merchant and a customer;
• receiving an identifier, the identifier alerting a computer system of the merchant that the customer is associated with a billing profile stored on a computer system external to the computer system available to the merchant and the customer service representative;
• notifying the customer service representative that the customer is associated with the billing profile, wherein the billing profile is electronically accessible by the external computer system, the identifier received in conjunction with the telephonic connection, the billing profile electronically stored on the external computer system previous to the telephonic connection;
• receiving information from the billing profile, the billing profile comprising billing information of the customer, the billing profile being electronically accessed using the external computer system, via a network, to process a sales order between the customer and the merchant;
• processing the sales order using the billing profile of the customer in response to a customer approval of the sales order, the sales order for one or more of a product and a service offered by the merchant;
• and
• shielding the billing information of the billing profile from the customer service representative wherein the billing information of the billing profile is unavailable for viewing in a display of a computing device associated with the customer service representative while the sales order is processed.

An apparatus comprising:

• a registration module that creates and stores a billing profile of a customer, wherein the billing profile comprises one or more of a credit card profile, a debit card profile, and a financial institution account profile;
• a phone connection module that establishes a telephonic connection between the customer and a customer service representative of a merchant;
• an identifier module that sends an identifier to a computer system of the merchant, the identifier alerting the computer system of the merchant that the customer is associated with the billing profile stored on a computer system external to the computer system available to the merchant and the customer service representative, wherein the customer service representative is notified, based on the identifier, that the customer is associated with the billing profile, wherein the billing profile is electronically accessible by the external computer system;
• and
• a billing profile module that provides information from the billing profile of the customer to the computer system of the merchant, the billing profile being electronically accessed using the external computer system, via a network, to process a sales order between the customer and the merchant, the sales order for one or more of a product and a service offered by the merchant, wherein billing information of the billing profile is shielded from the customer service representative, wherein the billing information of the billing profile is unavailable for viewing in a display of a computing device associated with the customer service representative while the sales order is processed,
• wherein at least a portion of said modules comprise one or more of hardware circuits, programmable hardware devices and executable code, the executable code stored on one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media.

A method comprising:

• creating and storing a billing profile, wherein the billing profile comprises one or more of a credit card profile, a debit card profile, and a financial institution account profile;
• establishing a telephonic connection between a customer and a customer service representative of a merchant;
• sending an identifier to a computer system of the merchant, the identifier alerting the computer system of the merchant that the customer is associated with the billing profile stored on a computer system external to the computer system available to the merchant and the customer service representative;
• notifying the customer service representative that the customer is associated with the billing profile, wherein the billing profile is electronically accessible by the external computer system;
• providing information from the billing profile to the computer system of the merchant, the billing profile being electronically accessed using the external computer system, via a network, to process a sales order between the customer and the merchant, the sales order for one or more of a product and a service offered by the merchant;
• and
• shielding billing information of the billing profile from the customer service representative, wherein the billing information of the billing profile is unavailable for viewing in a display of a computing device associated with the customer service representative while the sales order is processed.