A fast, secure, elegant experience in the contact center is here. 

Despite the explosion of digital interactions that are now possible using apps and browsers, there are still billions of calls to contact centers. Most people would agree that the contact center experience is not great from the caller’s perspective. Hold times are up, IVRs are annoying, and when you finally get on the line with an agent, you often must repeat authentication data and tell them why you’re calling…again. 

By contrast, logging into a web-based portal or an app can easily be achieved with a FaceID scan or a fingerprint that ties to your remembered passwords. What if that same experience could be replicated in the contact center? That is precisely what Journey and Webex Contact Center are bringing to bear. 

Thanks to Journey’s purpose-built encrypted network, any smartphone action can now be leveraged in a contact center. So, a caller could call a support center and “log in” with their face scan using their phone. They could leverage digital wallets or snap a photo of their credit card to make a secure payment in seconds. They can upload documents or finger-sign a document. Even highly secure transactions like wire transfers or loan applications could be easily handled in this manner. The security is increased by the options for high veracity identity proofing and the advanced encryption techniques that Cisco and Journey provide.

Journey is an integrated identity platform that enables identity proofing, authentication, and secure transactions by leveraging the sensors on a smartphone. The data, inputs, or images the caller provides are encrypted and delivered over Journey’s Zero Knowledge Network®, which prevents fraud and provides a seamless and fast customer experience. Now that Journey is integrated into Webex Contact Center’s voice channel, IVR, and agent desktop.

Journey’s cloud-based offering can be configured by a no-code orchestration engine and easily deployed without a complex engagement with specialized IT resources. Dozens of use cases can be handled by combining capabilities to achieve the desired level of security and privacy needed. Because Journey’s security and privacy model is so strong, it is an elegant solution for many regulatory compliance issues, like PCI compliance (for payments) or privacy issues (like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and more).

Here are some examples of these use cases in action:

Key Use Case: Biometric Customer Authentication

Callers to a Webex/Journey customer can now prove their identity simply by leveraging smartphone biometric sensors (e.g.. FaceID, Face Unlock, TouchID, etc.). This process authenticates the caller by verifying their identity via the smartphone sensors. This is a far faster and more secure process than answering security questions.

Biometric and device data verification is instantaneous, frees employees from evading social engineering or other fraudulent schemes, and enables them to help callers more quickly with any interaction.

Key Use Case: Secure Wire Transfers

Wire transfers are cumbersome and potentially risky for clients and financial services companies. For clients to initiate a transfer, in many cases, they have to physically go into a branch or submit a form or email only to have several back-and-forth engagements to validate the details and authentications before executing the transaction. It’s widely known that wire transfers have become a targeted big business for fraudsters. In 2022 fraud against wires increased over 25% from the previous year to 6.9B, according to FBI reports. So why are financial institutions still performing wire transfers the same way they have been doing for years?

Journey has fundamentally changed the front-end process for the execution of wire transfers, making them more secure and privacy-preserving, with a faster and more streamlined customer experience. Utilizing smartphone security and privacy via FIDO2 (link to definition), clients can now submit transaction details on their phone along with any identity verification from the phone. And for additional security, use the phone to scan a government document like a driver’s license. The relationship manager only sees the details necessary to execute the transfer. Potential fraud and transaction time plummet and customer experience is modern, elegant, and fast.

 

 

Julie Runda Headshot

Director Global Partner Enablement GE Digital. Led marketing, exec communications, customer advocacy, & employee engagement Avaya.