Visibility and Voice Biometrics Prevent Fraud

Organization

• Government Agency. This federal agency is the principal revenue collecting organization for the country

Challenges

The agency takes 9 million calls a year, and 75% require an agent to verify customer identity.

• This costs the agency annually 75,000 hours of call center time 

• Customer ID theft was big business: in 2014 it hit 18,000 attempts, resulting in fraudulent refunds of $12 Million 

• Almost half of the calls, or 4.3 million, come in a burst of activity 3 months a year. This labor-intensive process needed to be streamlined. 

• Recognition of consumer frustration with PINs, passwords and security questions also drove the agency to seek a solution 

Solutions

• Keysight Flex Taps 

• Keysight Network Packet Brokers 

• Optics, accessories and support 

• Voice Biometrics Tools (Third Party) 

Results

• Automated biometric authentication improves the agency’s ability to prevent and detect identity theft and fraud. 

• In 2015 the agency stopped $6.6 million in fraudulent refunds and the attempts at ID fraud almost halved in part with the help of this solution. 

• Full enrollment will equal $1.2M annually in call center savings 

• In the first year of operation, 1.5M people have enrolled a voiceprint 

• These callers experience a 40- 45 second reduction in call times, improving customer experience and saving 16,000+ hours of call center time, equaling $250K

Help Detect 11,000 Identity Thefts

Government agencies around the world are tasked with improving customer experiences, while running leaner, more effective operations. The race to deliver a contemporary digital experience also figures in as they strive to be more responsive to their constituencies. 

This national revenue collection agency receives 9 million calls a year, with 75% of those requiring an agent to verify the caller’s identity. When a customer called, the identity authentication process involved several steps. The process was difficult for both customers and agency personnel, who collectively spent 75,000 hours each year verifying customers’ identities. Call center staff costs average $16 per hour.

Previously, 76% of 9 million calls annually required an agent to verify identity, at a cost of $1.2 Million.

Further complicating the traffic load, almost half of those calls, or 4.3 million, come in a compressed three-month period each year. These demands over extended call center personnel with a flood of activity, each of which needed to be identified and authenticated. 

Another major challenge faced by the agency was identity fraud. The agency has historically been targeted on a mass scale by fraudsters, and in 2014 this had resulted in 18,000 attempts at fraudulently laying claim to refunds belonging to others. Criminals would contact the agency assuming a false identity or used stolen information to impersonate a legitimate taxpayer and commit tax fraud. The agency was seeking an added layer of authentication security to help deter, prevent and detect identify theft.