Philip Padfield blog no 3/Fluency web site/Sept 2007/ghost-written by Sue Tabbitt.

The ID callers can't leave at home

Voice biometrics is here, it's powerful, but it's also dreadfully annoying, complains Philip Padfield

It's amazing what technology can do to make the world a safer place - from identifying unique DNA, to locking out all but a single user from sensitive IT systems and accounts through the use of the latest biometrics. But isn't this trying to crack a nut with a rather large jack-hammer in the typical call center scenario?

The argument is that, without sufficiently discretionary identification checking, contact centers might unwittingly disclose sensitive account information, such as a £250,000 bank balance. Not that interception of the Royal Mail or a quick rummage in the bins round the back of the local building society couldn't achieve much the same thing…But is this really a winning use of intelligent speech recognition, or a symptom of a world gone a bit paranoid?

Some in the intelligent voice industry would have us believe that voice biometrics will be the catalyst for wholesale adoption of speech technologies. The logic goes something like this: Speaking is natural and effortless, and has the added advantage that your voice is something that is unique to you. Unlike other forms of biometric verification such as fingerprints or iris scans, it requires no special equipment to monitor and process it, and can be used over any phone, even over the Internet.

What's more, unlike PINs or passwords, a caller's voice cannot be stolen or lost, and it's something they always have with them, so no danger of leaving it in the car or on the kitchen table…

A seminar we are running on the subject at Call Center later this month delves deeper into the issue and considering whether the time is right to be jumping up and down and whooping at this great next step in the fight against crime.

It will warn that, while the technology is good and ready and shows immense potential, organizations must be wise in the way they approach and deploy it. Solutions that require tedious 'coaching' sessions as customers 'train' the application to recognize their voices, may demotivate customers by presenting them with yet another hurdle they have to jump through to get decent service from a call center.

At the same time, as long as 'false accepts' lurk at the 1-2% mark on voice biometrics, which they do with many systems today, the technology is not safe to be used in isolation. Instead, it is best combined with standard identification and verification (ID&V) customer screening techniques.

These are all serious considerations for customer service managers seeking to drive the next wave of sophisticated and protection into their self-service applications. We're not saying don't do it; just make sure you implement a solution that works for and not against you.