In a recent conversation with a Fortune 100 firm about its mobile engagement strategy, I was reminded that for all the talk of improving customer care for mobile consumers, of equal importance is upgrading the agent experience. Why? Because providing users with more streamlined information access and support must balance against empowering agents with the knowledge they need to reduce repetition and ease the customer's journey to a successful conclusion.
One of the worst kinds of repetition in the contact center, for example, is the machinations companies put customers through to authenticate themselves. This is especially, and understandably, true when dealing with financial institutions. For years, biometrics has been talked about as a way to validate identity but mostly it has been limited to personal devices. The fingerprint sign-in now available with iPhones and iPads is a great example. Instead of typing -- and remembering -- a code, "teach" the device one or more fingerprints and a simple press gets you into the device.
Why does authentication matter in the contact center? Because users often resent how much time the process eats up even before they can get to the reason they called into a center at all. Equally, agents dread the amount of time this repetitive process takes and the complaints that customers make about it. Voice biometrics is more suitable for use in the contact center. It authenticates customers by comparing to a previously-recorded voice sample versus some combination of PINs, passwords, and questions.
Facial recognition, made possible by the increasing adoption of smartphones with cameras, is the latest type of authentication for use in the contact center. USAA, a financial services and insurance firm for U.S. military families, is among early adopters. Earlier this year USAA began offering a choice of voice or facial authentication, and reports that 101,000 members already are using face or voice recognition to access mobile banking.
"Four out of five end customers who have experienced the technology prefer it over a PIN or password," Darrius Jones, USAA's executive director of emerging capabilities, told me in a recent phone conversation.
The symbiotic relationship between the agent experience and mobile customer applications is the subject of an Enteprise Connect 2015 session, "Improving the Contact Center Agent Experience," taking place next Wednesday, March 18, in Orlando. To kick off the session, Jones will discuss biometrics as well as some of the other innovative capabilities the company is piloting or has already deployed to its customers. He will conclude by describing the challenges these deployments create for contact center agents:
After Jones' presentation, executives from Aspect Software, Avaya, Cisco, Enghouse Interactive, and inContact will join us for a moderated discussion on how to address USAA's agent experience challenges. We look forward to seeing you there!
If you haven't yet registered for Enterprise Connect 2015, no worries! Register now using code NJSPEAKER and save $300 off the cost of an event pass.
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