Credit Unions Balance Call Center Fraud Protection With Member Experience
Credit union leaders describe how to ensure security without sacrificing user experience.
Pat Cox, vice president and general manager at Sterling, Va.-based information provider Neustar Inc., noted most of their customers’ call volumes continued to increase year over year. “The phone continues to be the most intimate, most used channel for that.”
To help thwart call center fraud, the $1.7 billion Orange County’s Credit Union (Santa Ana, Calif.) turned to Lake Oswego, Ore.-based TRUSTID, a provider of caller authentication and fraud prevention systems for contact centers. (In January 2019 Neustar closed on its acquisition of TRUSTID.)
TRUSTID’s suite of software-as-a-service products and services enables contact centers to identify callers automatically before answering calls using a patented approach that maximizes contact center efficiency, mitigates fraud and optimizes the customer experience.
Phillip Noel, Orange County’s call center manager, said, “It is really important to leverage technology to help find the balance between member experience and mitigating loss.”
Orange County’s implemented TRUSTID last February in conjunction with its conversion to a new telephony system. The credit union saw that as an opportunity to improve the identification process while reducing the overall processing time.
Melville, N.Y.-based Verint Systems Inc., The Customer Engagement Company, recently announced an expanded partnership with the $8.7 billion Jacksonville, Fla.-based VyStar Credit Union by adding Verint Identity Authentication and Fraud Detection to reduce operational costs and protect member identity, while improving the overall experience.
“A fraud situation is a highly emotionally-charged event, one that can either reinforce member trust or potentially destroy it,” Melissa Thomas, senior vice president of operations and payments, VyStar Credit Union, said.
Damian Smith, director, product management, Verint, said, “Multiple layers of technology are employed for real-time threat analysis prior to the calls reaching an agent. Through this analysis, the solution can adapt to new fraudulent events by identifying unique characteristics and patterns, often indicators of potential fraud.” Smith added that further analysis with voice biometrics can match the voice on the call against prior activity by a fraudster.
A key element of VyStar’s fraud detection approach is passive voice biometrics. Thomas said, “This supports a more efficient and effective agent and member experience, leading to lower average handle time and call costs, fraud prevention, and potential damage from financial loss.”
Read more about balancing member fraud protection and experience in the September 18th issue of CU Times.