Legacy Authentication Methods Are Failing Call Centers

When trying to sign into your various consumer accounts, do you ever feel like the security efforts are thwarting you, but not the criminals? Turns out, you may have a point.

According to the 2022 Omnichannel Authentication Survey from Neustar, fraud is on the rise in the contact center as criminals seek to work their way around agent-led interactions to gain access to consumer information and accounts. This rise in activity contributed to a $5.8 billion increase in consumer fraud losses in 2021 – 70 percent more than the amount lost in 2020.

The report highlights the vulnerability of agent authentication, with just one in ten consumers reporting an increase in meaningfully improved customer experience. Others reported dissatisfaction with long wait times, answering repetitive questions and impersonal interactions. None of these, of course, are new issues – they have plagued the customer service field for decades.

The positive is people recognize the value of reducing reliance on agent-led authentication methods to combat fraud and improve customer satisfaction. More specifically, 70 percent of people prefer to complete authentication with pre-answers or an interactive voice response (IVR) system over agent-led authentication processes. The tools for accommodating this are readily available. Here’s the disconnect: While the tools are available, not many are using them. The overwhelming majority of people (93 percent) want to detect fraud activity before or during engagement in an IVR system, but only 40 percent have the tools in place to do so.

So what are those two in five companies doing that others aren’t? They’re moving ahead with newer methods of authenticating customers.

“A gap is opening between forward-thinking organizations that have honed their authentication protocols for the benefit of customers, and the organizations that have not,” said Shai Cohen, senior vice president of global fraud solutions at TransUnion. “Enterprising companies that innovate their authentication approaches will not only improve the client journey but extend their advantage over less-innovative competitors.”

Contact centers have always been notoriously slow in adopting new technologies, often for fear of negatively impacting customer experience and damaging their relationships. But, those relationships are more fragile than ever and organizations need to seize the opportunity to improve their processes now, while they still can.

Edited by Erik Linask