Biometric Authentication in Customer Support

Find out about use circumstances for biometric authentication on this primer.

In terms of buyer satisfaction, what strikes the needle probably the most? Whereas product high quality, consumer expertise, and reductions all play a major function, customer support expertise typically tends to be probably the most defining issue.

Streamlining customer experience throughout a help name and making it seamless for the caller is an important step towards enhancing satisfaction. 

Nonetheless, typically, clients are likely to waste an inordinate period of time authenticating themselves in a cellphone name or chat earlier than they will even attain a human on the opposite facet. Answering questions like ‘What’s your mom’s maiden identify’, or ‘What’s your favourite metropolis’ are sometimes simply hacked – which suggests it isn’t too troublesome for an impersonator to transact in your behalf.

Biometric authentication is an efficient strategy to make buyer help extra seamless. It permits clients to authenticate themselves securely and shortly whereas speaking to a name middle agent or on-line over stay chat.

This has additionally grow to be a comparatively low-cost expertise that even small and medium-sized companies can afford previously decade.

Kinds of biometric authentication

There are lots of other ways to biometrically authenticate a person. The preferred manner to do that is with fingerprint scanning and facial recognition, and trendy smartphones include built-in instruments to allow each these authentication strategies.

These strategies, together with iris scanning, are thought of bodily methods since they use an individual’s bodily traits to authenticate them.

Along with this, you might also use somebody’s behavioral traits, together with their voice, handwriting, and strolling fashion, to authenticate them. 

Every of those strategies carries its personal professionals and cons. Voice biometric authentication, as an illustration, is good for buyer help. Nonetheless, even a gentle chilly or cough might make it troublesome for an algorithm to authenticate the caller. 

Equally, accidents might make authenticating a person by way of fingerprint or face troublesome.

One of the best ways ahead is to supply your caller a number of methods to authenticate themselves in terms of buyer help. This fashion, they keep away from getting right into a name loop with no strategy to resolve their points.

Integrating biometric authentication right into a buyer help channel

Companies hardly ever use legacy PBX methods to handle their buyer help. At this time, virtually all companies use cloud-based call center software applications to run their buyer help. Not solely is it cheaper and extremely scalable, nevertheless it additionally makes it attainable for a enterprise to have their finest brokers log in from any a part of the nation or the world. That is particularly helpful for companies operating a 24×7 name middle operation.

A giant benefit of such cloud-based functions is that they are often simply personalized with third-party integration. For instance, a enterprise might combine its buyer help system with a third-party software providing voice recognition software program to authenticate its callers. APIs and webhooks make it a comparatively easy affair to incorporate AI tools that may authenticate behavioral traits, together with voice, fairly successfully.

In truth, a enterprise might use a number of functions to run their completely different buyer help channels – like a name middle and stay chat help, and uniquely authenticate clients throughout these completely different platforms utilizing the identical backend expertise.

Use Circumstances & Examples

There are two main use-cases for biometric authentication in buyer help – Exterior and Inner communication.

Authenticating an exterior name is comparatively easy – your corporation might have to authenticate a person calling your name middle to course of their request securely. 

However along with this, your group might also have to authenticate inside communication. That is particularly vital when your brokers log in remotely, and you’ll need to be sure that the particular person representing your group is certainly whom you employed for the job.

Whereas numerous organizations use two-factor authentication instruments like safety tokens, the reality is that they are often simply manipulated in a distant work setting. Biometrics is a simpler strategy to defend your group’s property from impersonators.

Take the instance of a name middle agent logging in from house to both attend to buyer calls. Given the shortage of supervision, it’s at all times straightforward for such an agent to log out halfway by means of their shift and let a member of the family take over. Common authentication strategies might not work because it’s wilfully finished on their half.

Voice-based biometrics that periodically assesses their speech will help authenticate the agent with none energetic effort on their half.

The longer term for biometrics in buyer help

Within the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, there may be solely going to be an increase in distant working and on-line purchasing. Each these level to a world the place biometrics is important to authenticate each the shopper and the agent. As such, we’re going to witness this expertise proliferate much more than what we’ve seen previously a few years.