Ground-breaking advancements in AI have made voice biometrics the fastest-growing technology for modern contact centers. It can dramatically enhance security, prevent call fraud, protect sensitive data, enable better customer experiences, and drive down average call handle times. When implemented properly, a voice biometrics solution will enable your contact center to identify callers and satisfy their requests as they speak naturally, the same way they would interact with a live agent.
Voice biometric authentication is faster and more secure than traditional authentication processes. It operates seamlessly in the background to verify the caller’s voice against a database of voiceprints, so they are not required to remember a PIN, password, or knowledge-based question. It eliminates the need for callers to share private data or answer a series of personal questions to identify themselves. Automatically recognizing and validating the caller’s identity via voice biometrics creates seamless self-service experiences that eliminate frustration and give callers the impression their call is important.
Ryan Clabaugh, Director of Collaboration at Cerium Networks, offered his thoughts on voice biometric authentication, “It speeds up the authentication of callers, which in turn increases the number of interactions agents can potentially address daily. In doing so, the contact center becomes more efficient and more profitable while at the same time improving the experience offered to both callers and agents, who no longer have to ask the same arduous questions on every single call.”
Advantages of Voice Biometric Authentication
Voice biometric authentication strengthens fraud prevention, helps meet compliance regulations, and keeps your customer’s sensitive data secure. It has significant advantages over knowledge-based authentication, including:
- It’s Fast: Once the voiceprints have been created, most voice biometric systems can accurately authenticate most callers within a few seconds.
- It’s Reliable: Voice biometric authentication is not susceptible to social engineering or stolen user data and offers anti-spoofing technology that can detect synthetically generated voices and recordings.
- It’s Seamless: By replacing frustrating, manual processes with automated speaker identification and verification, voice biometrics can significantly streamline user experiences.
- It Increases ROI: Voice biometric authentication solutions shorten the average wait and call handling times while reducing agent workloads and improving efficiency.
Voice biometrics can operate in active or passive mode. Both modes can be useful depending on your needs. Passive voice authentication is better for simple queries or service that requires interaction with live agents to verify the caller’s identity. Active voice authentication is better for safeguarding sensitive data that requires a high degree of security and compliance in self-serve applications.
Active Voice Biometrics
Active voice biometric authentication require callers to say a specific phrase or set of phrases multiple times, for example, their account number or telephone number, while the system establishes a unique voiceprint. Then, each time they call in, they are asked to repeat the phrase, and the system verifies their identity by matching the speech to the caller’s voiceprint.
Passive Voice Biometrics
Passive voice biometric authentication, captures caller voiceprints during a natural conversation with an agent. The caller is not required to say or repeat any specific phrases. It takes as little as twenty seconds for the system to establish a baseline voiceprint that can be used for authentication. Passive voice biometrics solutions can compare the caller’s speech to a voiceprint and authenticate users within just a few seconds without requiring callers to say a passphrase or repeat words multiple times.
Accuracy
Voice biometrics is extremely accurate. However, no solution is perfect, and voice biometrics systems may reject a legitimate user or erroneously authenticate an impostor. For most solutions, false acceptance rates are typically below 0.5%, and false rejection rates are less than 5%. Despite its imperfections, voice biometrics can be an extremely valuable authentication tool, particularly when it is used as one factor of a multi-factor authentication process.
Getting Started with Voice Biometric Authentication Solutions
Voice biometric authentication is one of the ways AI is revolutionizing call centers. Consider adding voice biometric authentication to your contact center as one factor of your multi-factor authentication strategies. Replace frustrating, time-consuming verification processes with seamless authentication. Cerium experts can help you find the right solution for your specific environment and caller journeys. We offer flexible and customizable solutions that integrate voice biometrics with existing systems to put contextual caller information at your agent’s fingertips and enhance IVR self-service to shrink call queues and reduce agent workloads.
