Voice biometrics—Omni-channel customer engagement success stories

Barclays’s passion towards the delivery of world-class customer service and an outstanding client experience has been a key motivator in the decision to implement passive voice biometrics solution for verification. As a result, Barclays Wealth and Investment Management has become the first organization to use this technology globally to transform the client experience.

Results from Barclays’ client satisfaction research indicated that its clients wanted a better experience from the telephone channel security processes, reducing the time it takes to complete the authentication process for them to be authenticated before their query can be dealt with. Barclays’ client service center-based relationship managers also voiced concerns about the process, explaining they did not feel comfortable asking their clients a comprehensive set of security questions when they had already established a relationship. Historically, clients could walk into a branch and be recognized by the manager by name; a major experience requirement for Barclays’ solution would be to deliver the same easy, personalized service experience in the most controlled, efficient and secure way possible.

On a broader scale, no single wealth manager has greater than a 7% share of the global market. Increasing the productive capacity of its relationship managers is critical to Barclays’ ambitions to become one of the world’s top five wealth managers. This focus is especially important when running an agent-only service center with no telephony automation, in which case optimising the agent interaction is a major lever in scaling the business.

To achieve Barclays' goal, they implemented FreeSpeech from Nuance Communications, an innovative speaker verification solution. The technology authenticates the caller while ensuring the flow of the call is not interrupted.