As the saying goes, “There are two sides to every coin.” This is particularly true when it comes to the business of authentication of voice communications with contact centers. The calling parties need to know their interactions will be treated in a confidential manner. This means their transactional information will not be compromised exposing them to identify theft and a host of downstream problems such theft might incur. The flip side is that contact center agents need to be able to have multiple ways of authentication with the parties they are interacting with. The reason is fraudsters have and continue to use impersonation as the primary means for working their mischief.
All of this is of note based on the recent announcement from Korean mobile service operator SK Telecom that has introduced what it is characterizing as the industry-first voice authentication system. Using speaker dependent voice recognition, contact center operators can determine the identity of the calling party based on the uniqueness of their voice. SK Telecom is touting the capability as “further strengthening the customer’s personal information protect level.”
The use of speaker dependent recognition since its origins has been used for authentication in a variety of industries. In fact, for hands-environments like the cockpits of fighter planes it has proven to be invaluable, along with part of many multi-factor authentication solutions is high-security environments. The reason is that like DNA, finger prints and iris scans, our voices have significant unique features that with a high degree of accuracy when measure can validate we are in fact who we say week are. This means that even highly-skilled voice impersonators cannot replicate our voices to the point where their ruse went undetected.
Using next generation technology in contact centers is nothing new for SK Telecom. Starting with its Smartphone Remote Counseling service in 2010 the company has been investing in continuously upgrading in its contact centers to provide enhanced customer experiences. In fact, it will be launching a Video Automatic Response System this month.