Nuance, in partnership with its South African partner OneVault, hosted the first South African voice biometric event in July. The forum was held to help South African businesses understand how voice biometrics can transform businesses and offer an exceptional (and secure) customer experience. Industry experts and thought-leaders presented to 75 delegates, ranging from decision-makers to senior managers in a number of industries, including contact centres, risk and security, innovation, business process, marketing and IT.
Currently, organisations wanting to verify a person’s identity over the phone do so by asking for their personal information – a time consuming process that often ends in failure because of the depth and obscurity of the questions.
This type of identity verification is also vulnerable to fraud, as fraudsters can ‘stalk’ a person online to learn all their personal information, and gain access to their accounts in spite of the barrage of questions. Voice biometrics takes the risk and hassle out of verifying a person’s identity over the phone – through an automated phone system (IVR), or with a live agent, or via a mobile application.
Research by Nuance revealed that 85% of consumers are frustrated by PINs, passwords, and similar authentication methods. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said that they had more than 11 user names and passwords to remember across their various accounts, while 49% said they found having to verify their identity over the phone to be time consuming and cumbersome.
Nuance research also revealed that between 15% and 30% of customers fail identity verification when they are who they say they are, but up to 60% of criminals pass through the process illegally.
Voice biometrics technology is a speaker authentication technology that captures a voice sample from a live caller, compares it to a previously stored voiceprint, and produces a confidence score of how closely the caller’s voice sample matches the voiceprint.
A voiceprint includes more than 100 unique physical and behavioural characteristics of a person, such as length of the vocal tract, nasal passage, and pitch, cadence, accent, etc. Independent research has shown that a voiceprint is unique to an individual, just as a fingerprint is.
The agenda
The morning started with Dan Miller, lead analyst and founder of Opus Research, presenting on Intelligent Identity Management and Authentication. Opus is a global biometric research consultancy and Miller participated in consulting projects in call centre-based commerce, voice-based communications and electronic commerce for clients that include top IT, telecommunications and hosted service providers, as well as a number of entrepreneurial firms.
Nuance’s South African partner in South Africa, OneVault, looked at the dynamics that are driving the need for voice biometrics in intelligent identity management and authentication. The focus was specifically on South African scenarios. Ravin Sanjith, chief executive officer for OneVault believes that voice biometrics is best explained through demonstration and used local case studies and demonstrations to explain exactly what voice biometrics is, the different types of authentication, as well as the realities customers experience every day.
Voice biometrics is often accompanied by the question of “What are the legal implications around using this type of technology?” Lisa Maino, director of Maino Stoger Attorneys, covered all the legal aspects around voice biometrics as well as the legal landscape in South Africa.
The director of product strategy, voice biometrics for Nuance, Brett Beranek, had a look at how voice biometrics has evolved over the years. He shared the voice biometrics adoption landscape as well as the benefits that customers experience when successfully implementing voice biometrics. One of the case studies shared was how Barclays Wealth has had a 6% reduction in agent absenteeism and increase in retention rate.
The morning session ended with a panel discussion by South African customers who have benefited from voice biometrics. These included Investec, Discovery and Vodacom. Craig West, head of global client support centre at Investec, fully supports voice biometrics and would like to set up a South African industry group to discuss and debate how voice biometrics can increase the safety of South Africans as a whole.
Voice biometrics has broad applicability across organisations that need to provide a convenient authentication process as part of their customer experience, while at the same time maintaining high levels of security. Financial institutions such as HSBC, as well as government organisations such as the Australian Tax Office have led notable deployments of voice biometrics in their call centres and mobile applications. Voice biometrics has also been used in government organisations to properly authenticate pensioners, to reduce fraud and improve the experience for legitimate pension recipients.
For more information, contact Vanda Dickson, OneVault, +27 082 884 7786, [email protected],
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