KYC & BIOMETRICS
Santander UK is using voice biometrics to improve call centre experience. Its Strategic Change Manager Gavin Smith told us how When lockdown hit the UK, bank customers hit the phone. Call centres became the banks’ front line as millions of people, fearful for their financial future, inundated staff with requests for mortgage and payment holidays. Themselves under siege from the pandemic, many bank centres were left with a reduced number of operatives fielding the most challenging calls of their career from makeshift offices in kitchens and bedrooms. The logistical challenge was immense and, notwithstanding the crippling workload, which led, in the early stages of the crisis, to frustration and delays, call centre staff across the industry rose to it magnificently. They were among the unclapped heroes of the hour. In a crisis, call centres provide what no digital experience ever could: the warmth of human contact – a listening ear, an empathetic response. But not just during a global pandemic. Between 2017 and the depth of the crisis this summer, the number of active telephone banking customers the world over has almost doubled, according to figures released in September by Global Data, indicating that digital channels alone are not enough to resolve customer
problems. The recently published UK Banking Channel Forecast by Business Intelligence, which looks at where banks should focus staff resources and investment over the next five years, believes that trend in demand for telephone services will only continue, the pandemic having demonstrated the continued preference for human assistance. If that is the case, bosses who saw contact centre capacity at some banks fall as low as 60 per cent due to fewer UK staff and the closure of centres overseas, will be looking for ways to maximise the time available to each call. And, if the forecasts are correct, then telephone banking demands as much attention as digital when it comes to creating smooth customer experience. Santander UK began addressing those twin challenges a year ago with the introduction into call centres of VoiceID, a system that leverages Nuance Technologies’ fraud-preventing biometrics. A version of the software had already been successfully deployed by Banco Santander
Mexico in response to the government’s more restrictive identity and verification rules for authenticating bank customers there. More often than not, customers forgot the complicated sequence of PIN numbers, leading to 60-65 per cent of 1.4 million customer calls failing at first try. On average, agents then spent 72 seconds on a more in-depth verification process, eating in to both their time and the customer’s. Nuance’s VocalPassword solution cut that to 30 seconds. “Biometrics enable a seamless experience by allowing our contact centre colleagues to know they are speaking to the correct person so they can focus on providing them with the service they expect from us,” says Gavin Smith, strategic change manager at Santander UK. “We have a fantastic customer journey where we use the telephone number that the customer is calling from to identify them, and their voice to verify them. We use multiple strategies to verify our callers, which means we don’t rely solely on the biometric for identification. This ensures we can be confident the caller is who they say they are, but it’s a much faster, easier and secure experience than keying in ID numbers and PINs or going through several questions.”
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Shout out to call centres: They came to the fore in a crisis – and it looks like they’re here to stay
Issue 18 | TheFintechMagazine
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