Providing Improved Contact Center Agent Assistance During a Secure Transaction Involving an Interactive Voice Response Unit

A secure payment agent assist (“SPAA”) feature provides assistance to a contact center agent during a payment transaction, where payment information provided by the remote party is maintained in secure manner, so that the agent is not exposed to the payment information. The agent is assisted by being provided with a pop-up window that allows the agent to invoke a “recollect” and “cancel” function during the transaction. The pop-up window also provide information to the agent making the agent aware of the progress of the transaction as the remote party interacts with an interactive voice response (“IVR”) unit. In other embodiments, a configuration parameter allows the prompts for the payment information to be provided by the agent or the IVR.