News release
Contact:
James Taylor
Corporate PR Manager
+44 (0) 115 934 4547 Tel
james.taylor2@uk.experian.com Email
Experian and VoiceVault partner to create fully hosted biometric authentication system
Rapid validation of callers will save contact centres time and money
Nottingham, UK, 18 June 2008: Experian®, the global information services company, and VoiceVault, a leader in voice-based biometric identity verification, have entered into a partnership to create a hosted, pay-as-you-go biometric identity verification service. The VoiceCheck service, secured by VoiceVault, will dramatically reduce the time and costs associated with validating contact centre callers.
The new service from Experian and VoiceVault will enable the identity of contact centre callers to be securely verified in a matter of seconds by comparing callers’ voices against a previously recorded voice print. By replacing the time-consuming manual verification process with a fully automated system, contact centre agents will be presented with a validated identity at the start of a call and can dedicate a greater proportion of their time to assisting callers.
Once a contact centre organisation has identified a new customer, they will be invited to register with Voice Check, typically by speaking a phrase or account number. The voice print that is created will be held on Experian’s secure databases, and used to match against a caller’s voice when they use the contact centre again.
As the system is fully-hosted by Experian and priced on a per-check basis, contact centre clients will benefit from low set-up costs and no fixed fees. Furthermore, a number of added value components to the service also include, batch authentication services to help validate customers' identities and analysis to identify whether individual voice prints are already attributed to other identities on the database.
Jim Lound, Director of Trust Services at Experian, commented: “VoiceCheck provides a fast, effective and more user friendly method of securely validating a caller’s identity and it is the next generation in identity validation technology. By using voice biometrics to re-verify that the person coming back to a contact centre is who was registered for the service in the first place, contact centre agent talk time can be reduced by around 30 seconds per call, resulting in a reduction in the costs associated with verifying the identity of callers by up to 75 per cent.”
John Colgan, Head of Business Development at VoiceVault, commented: “We are excited to announce this partnership with Experian. Voice biometrics is a proven and highly secure technology that is able to pinpoint callers due to the uniqueness of their voice. Contact centres will benefit greatly from its use.”
The voice biometric software used in VoiceCheck measures more than 130 characteristics of an individual's voice and is able to detect and prevent the use of a voice recording to gain access. It is the only biometric technology in the world that has EU Certification for Advanced Digital Signatures. By eliminating the human interaction in the re-verification of callers, it removes the possibility for a fraudster to ‘con’ the agent using stolen information or for any form of collusion to take place.