Misspelled your mother’s maiden name? Misremembered the make and model of your first car? Forgotten the answers to one of the many “secret” questions you’ve had to set up? If you have, you’ve no doubt seen the weakness in ‘knowledge-based authentication’ (KBA) - the most common means of identity verification used by contact centres today and, arguably, the most exploited for of authentication also.

KBA has been used as the primary means of remotely verifying an individual’s identity. In theory, it is easily usable because it relies upon information that users are expected to readily know but don’t usually share. However, KBA does not authenticate that the user is who they say they are (assertion of their identity), only that they know the answers to a set of pre-defined questions. It also adds significant friction to the customer experience, leading to potential call abandonment. Asking the caller for responses to challenging questions can take an inordinate amount of time, without focusing on the root customer issues, which can often be frustrating for the caller. This is why Avaya has worked to make authentication a simpler process and exponentially more secure.

Avaya continues to build strategic partnerships with some of the world’s most admired technology brands. ValidSoft, a world leader in voice biometric solutions, is one of the newest partners to join Avaya & Friends partner relationship program. Avaya and ValidSoft have been partnering through direct R&D engagement and deep product integration to offer customers flexible voice biometrics that are independent of any other solutions. Biometrics that enable them to reap the contact centre and unified communication benefits of cost and fraud reduction, whilst enhancing the customer experience.

Your voice is entirely unique to you, preventing fraud
What we hear when somebody speaks is a particular speech pattern. Every individuals throat, palette and vocal chords (i.e. their physical make-up) is uniquely different and it is these elements that distorts, or changes, the air being expelled from our lungs and out of our mouths when we speak. ValidSoft's biometric solutions measure the unique biometric signature derived from this distortion, or the way the air travels through your trachea, mouth and nasal cavity. The characteristics picked up in the resulting soundwave, in essence, enable ValidSoft to create a digital map of an individual vocal tract and associated physical attributes.

These voice profiles, commonly known as “voice prints”, are very secure and flexible. It’s natural, convenient and unlike KBA, there’s absolutely nothing to remember (or forget!). Your voice cannot be stolen, bypassed or learnt by criminals, which highlights the strength voice biometrics have over KBA-based information, which can relatively easily be captured by fraudsters using social engineering.

Authentication works on an omni-channel basis
Voice biometrics is also an approach that can be used on an omnichannel basis. Once your voice is registered in the secure platform, on one channel, for example IVR or Call Centre, it can be used across not only that channel, but also your other customer engagement channels such as online portals and smart phone apps. This means customers can have a consistent and consistently secure authentication experience whichever way they choose to interact with an organisation.

It reduces call handling times and costs
When the traditional approach is to ask customers a number of knowledge based questions, causing frustration, call abandonment including lost sales opportunities, and can take anywhere from 45 seconds to over 2 minutes to complete. This can have a huge impact on contact centre Average Call Handling time and the resulting operational costs. Voice biometric authentication can be performed with as little as 2 seconds of customer speech. It enables the agent to focus on the root customer far more quickly. Customers are fulfilled faster, agent’s can deliver a more focused experience and your operational costs can be reduced by requiring fewer agents to handle the same call volume.

Avaya and ValidSoft – Working Together for You
Avaya and ValidSoft’s relationship stemmed from providing integrated voice biometrics to clients’ IVR and call centres, but customer requirements have encouraged the use of voice when interacting with chatbots, mobile and web apps and even smart voice assistants. Companies are increasingly looking for more strategic capabilities in their contact centres to give them the ability to provide a true omnichannel (unified) engagement in a cost-effective and flexible way to create real differentiation. This experience cannot happen without focusing on the delivery of a consistent, cross-channel security model.

Avaya and ValidSoft are providing those capabilities, acting as your trusted partners to deliver advanced omni-channel voice authentication. Rather than adding friction and cost, voice biometrics simply provides one of the most secure and cost-effective ways to improve the customer experience.