Customers Skip the Trip with an IVR System and Voice Biometrics

With the price of gas being sky-high and time being in short supply, who wouldn’t love any application that allows them to “skip the trip,” especially when it’s some place mundane, like the bank.

Organizations like banks and other institutions with which you perform transactions that require some form of privacy, security or identification would rather not see you either, not because they don’t like you, but because it would be more cost-effective for them to provide the services you need using their interactive voice response (IVR) system.

More and more, these types of businesses are finding they can indeed use their IVR system to service your needs, when it is linked to voice biometrics technology.

As voice biometrics solutions have advanced, their integration with IVR system solutions has opened the door for use in every day type of applications. One organization that is a great advocate of furthering the joint use of these technologies and has served as the catalyst for a variety of organizational types becoming more efficient while reducing costs as a result of the integration of voice biometrics and IVR system solutions is Interact.

We recently learned through a blog written by Interact that the Desert Schools FCU (federal credit union) in Phoenix, Arizona, is going to being using voice biometrics technology from Finivation Software and linked to the union’s IVR system to enable the federal credit union’s customers to reset passwords, make wire transactions and ACH transfers, all of which were characterized as “high-risk” transactions.

As great as this sounds, it still represents a “typical,” albeit emerging, application of voice biometrics integrated with an IVR system. Interact believes there are many, many more applications waiting to be explored and is challenging a broader spectrum of companies, institutions, organizations and governments to “think out of the box” and contemplate how this technology duo can be used to benefit their endeavors and consequently benefit their customers, members, students or whatever category of people rely on them for services that have a confidentiality/identification/security factor associated with them.

Interact’s blog reveals that it has been practicing what it preaches and has been busy working with its diverse customer base to integrate its IVR system solutions with voice biometrics “to create intelligent voice applications utilizing voice biometrics technology.”  It cites some interesting applications that might inspire some creative thinking. Take its work with third world governments. It said that using a customized IVR application approach it has enabled them to track parolees with the use of voice biometrics as well as location-based services. Exotic? Yes, but it demonstrates that the integration of an IVR system with voice biometrics has endless possibilities as long as you work with an applications provider that offers a capable IVR system and has the experience to customize a solution that leverages voice biometrics.

The challenge is on.