Speaker verification uses voice biometrics to verify a caller’s identity by his or her spoken voice. Voice biometrics measures the person’s vocal tract characteristics (to produce a digitized voiceprint), and is unique to each individual. Voice biometrics is highly accurate, non-invasive and ideal for identity verification over the phone. 

Speaker verification consists of two processes -- enrollment and verification. In enrollment: a person enrolls (after his identity is verified) by repeating a pass phrase three times. With verification, In subsequent calls, the enrolled person is prompted by an IVR to repeat the pass phrase. A successful verification allows the person to proceed in the IVR or transfer to an agent (who is alerted to the person’s verification status).

There are four compelling reasons why speaker verification should be deployed at call centers:

Reduces Costs

In today’s environment, most call centers ask callers a series of challenge questions (e.g., mother’s maiden name) to verify their identities. This process typically takes anywhere from 30-60 seconds. Speaker verification can do it in less than five seconds. Multiply the savings by hundreds or thousands of callers and the productivity gains start to add up. Of course, automating the identity verification process also allows agents to spend more valuable time actually servicing callers.

Increases Security

Identity fraud continues to be a growing problem for consumers and businesses in the United States. Through the use of social engineering techniques such as pre-texting or phishing, fraudsters can obtain personal information that allows them to assume the identity of another person. This is of particular concern to call centers, as a caller may know the answers to the challenge questions but in fact be an imposter. Speaker verification can significantly reduce this threat by ensuring that the caller is actually who he says he is.

Enhances Customer Experience

Please verify your address. What was the name of your first dog? Who did you date in fifth grade? 

Speaker verification provides a quicker and more user-friendly process for verifying a caller’s identity. For starters, there is no need for the caller to remember or disclose personal information in response to all those annoying challenge questions. Callers get to the service or information they need quicker and spend less time on the call – and that’s a good thing!

Facilitates Regulatory Compliance

Regulations such as FFIEC and HIPAA mandate higher levels of identity verification, known as multifactor authentication. The three primary factor categories are something the caller knows (e.g., account number), something the caller has (e.g., hardware token) and something the caller is (e.g., person’s voice characteristics). Call centers can use speaker verification, combined with another factor (such as account number), to ensure compliance with the multifactor requirement.

Speaker verification is a proven technology that can reduce costs, increase security, enhance the customer experience, and facilitate regulatory compliance. What's everyone waiting for?

Siegy Adler is a New York based voice biometrics consultant. In 2005, he co-founded VoxLock Technologies, a pioneer in the voice biometrics space. Siegy blogs about voice biometrics at http://voxbiometrics.blogspot.com and can be reached at siegy@scadler.com.