- Written by Kris Graham - Senior Account Executive Contact Centre
- Connect with Kris on LinkedIn
Automating identity and verification could be the difference between your agents reaching optimum efficiency versus asking the same routine questions all day long. Think about it. How long does your team spend asking the same questions, only to hit “yes” on their contact centre app or read back details from a screen?
We don’t need humans to do this job when things go right. That’s not to say we don’t need human intervention if someone has forgotten their password or the interaction needs escalation. Far from it. But, instead of clogging up the phone lines, make a conscious choice to automate the basic level of your identity and verification process.
What is automated identity verification?
Automated identity verification is when your contact centre IVR takes care of the beginning of interactions with customers.
Using automatic speech recognition technology and integration with your CRM or security system, it can work through security questions like passwords, mother’s maiden name, amount of last invoice, and so on.
Callers (and website visitors accessing their accounts via web chat) respond with their answers and either pass or fail security.
PASS
If passed, they continue to access their account via a human agent or conversational IVR.
FAIL
If failed, your automated identity and verification system can ask further questions or escalate to a human agent.
What is an automated verification system?
Built into contact centre software, the automation of identity and verification becomes simple. You set your desired questions and prompts. Then the first phase of customer interactions get handled by your IVR.
It works like this:
- Phone system receives new call
- Number dialled from is recognised as customer
- IVR asks for a reason for calling
- Customer hits “2” for “help with a renewal”
- IVR asks to confirm security questions
- Customer inputs security answers
- IVR validates correct answers and routes to a renewals agent
Callers can enter their security information using their voice or key presses using DTMF technology. All the while, your call centre agents have spare time to handle more emotive and urgent queries without losing time confirming account details.
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Why financial services teams should embrace automated identity and verification
The benefits of automating identity and verification (ID&V) concern speed of connecting customers to agents and improving your overall contact centre efficiency.
1.
Improved average speed of answer
When you let your IVR handle the beginning of every call (assuming ID&V is the first step in your process), there’s no reason for customers to wait for an agent to become available.
2.
Improved average handle time
With more agents free to handle calls, there’s less time waiting in the queue after ID&V gets completed. As they’re no longer busy asking questions that could be outsourced to a bot, there’s more time to spend solving problems and providing important information. Average handle times will plummet, creating a knock on impact of efficiency in your departments.
3.
More secure verification process
Your verification processes become more secure as you remove the potential for human error. There’s no agent cross-checking different systems or misinterpreting security answers. When left to machines, it’s black and white. Either your caller gets the answer right or wrong. No unauthorised staff can access accounts.
4.
Significant scalability
During peak volumes, like outages, renewals season, or following popular marketing campaigns, simply answering the phone becomes a burden on your workforce.
The temptation during these periods is to scale up your staff level. You might see an uplift of 25% to cater to the demand of incoming calls. With automated ID&V, however, there’s no need for such vast expenditure. Instead, implement automation at the beginning of calls and benefit from free agents further down the line. There’s no upper limit to the amount of calls a bot can handle. It’s a win-win situation for customers, agents, and your bottom line.
5.
Boosted fraud prevention
Hackers and fraudsters have traditionally targeted account access via voicemails and by imitating account holders when passing ID&V. While human agents have set questions and answers, there is little to stop them having an off day or thinking they’ve heard the right answer when it’s something close or similar sounding.
When ID&V is carried out by a bot, the chance of fraud decreases as there’s no room for manipulation or misjudgement. The bot either receives the correct answers or your fraudster doesn’t get into the account.
6.
Simplify compliance requirements
For payment, account access, or any type of requirement, adding automation upfront means this gets taken care of immediately and without the potential for human error. That’s not to say your humans are prone to error. It’s natural.
According to a study by NCBI, 60-80% of accidents involve human error. It’s something we must accept as business owners and team leaders. Humans are flawed. Automated bots are significantly less flawed as they don’t get tired, distracted, or influenced by external sources. Letting them tend to your compliance requirements at the beginning of calls means you stand a higher chance of adhering to compliance.
7.
Introduce self service
If your long term goals include adding self-service to other parts of your contact centre, using the first part of the call is a great place to start. Customers will get used to speaking to an automated voice and pressing keys on their handset to choose departments and pass security.
When you introduce self service into other areas, it will be second nature to customers and adoption will be significantly higher than this being the first time you ask someone to pay their bill without human help.
8.
Lower operational costs
The more you automate (appropriately) the more money you’ll save. Ultimately, we’re talking about exchanging a few pounds per month to free up hours of agent time.
The trade-off is an easy one. Agents can spend more time helping customers and learning new skills while the routine and mundane is taken care of by a bot. You may find you need fewer agents to handle calls with the amount of time you save, leading to lower overall costs attributed to your business unit.
9.
One-up your competition
With faster service, more efficient interactions, and a secure contact centre, you’ll be a step ahead of competitors who are yet to make this move.
So, even if the inevitable happens and customers look elsewhere, they’ll remember how simple and secure it is to transact with you. For large accounts, it’s not uncommon for RFPs to require secure and self-service options now that modern cloud technology is the norm.
10.
Automate reporting
As your bot tends to the ID&V of your callers, it’s collecting data about the timings and success rates of each call. Let’s say you receive 10,000 calls per month. At the moment, how many of those pass security first time?
With built-in reporting, it’s easy to see that you have a 97% ID&V rate. Or it could be that on one specific date, you spot a major decline. If only 40% of calls have passed ID&V the first time, it could be a sign you’re being targeted. With historical and real-time reporting in place, you can monitor and manage the security of your contact centre without extensive analysis.
Conclusion: The case for automating ID&V is clear
In the financial services business especially, the automating of ID&V is a no-brainer.
With the benefits outweighing the disadvantages 99 to one (you have to introduce a feature that needs a little programming), pushback for such functionality is unheard of. After deploying Servis Bot to automate ID&V, one Opus customer now reports a saving of 45 seconds per call.
As a caller gets identified using automation before an agent answers the call, agents spend time resolving problems instead of checking off admin and security tasks. The only thing holding back your business has been awareness. But now you know all about ID&V automation, you’re best positioned to start saving agent time and secure your contact centre.
