Australian Taxation Office Deploys Nuance Voice Biometrics in its Call Center to Drive Efficiency, Better Experience; First i...
July 14 2015 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Nuance’s Voice Biometrics Eases Burden on
Customers and ATO Agents Alike, Reducing Call Times and Improving
the Customer Service Experience
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that
the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has completed its two-phased
deployment of Nuance’s voice biometrics solutions in its call
center in an effort to build stronger customer relationships with
taxpayers and enhance authentication by replacing intrusive
security questioning. With the introduction of its voice biometrics
systems, ATO becomes the first organization in Australia to deploy
voice biometrics in this manner.
The ATO receives approximately nine million calls per year from
the community, with around 75 percent of these calls requiring an
ATO agent to verify the caller’s identity. In addition, the ATO
expects to receive more than half (4.3) million of these calls
within its three-month peak tax period between July and October
2015. Prior to voice biometrics, when a customer called to conduct
a transaction with the ATO, the authentication process involved
several steps, putting pressure not only on customers to provide
personal details or have the correct documentation in front of
them, but also on the ATO’s call center agents, who collectively
spent approximately 75,000 hours each year just trying to verify
customers over the phone.
To solve this, the ATO chose to deploy Nuance’s voice biometrics
solutions, in partnership with Optus, an existing managed network
services provider, and Nuance. The ATO completed its first
installation of Nuance’s VocalPassword solution in September 2014,
whereby customers speak a simple passphrase to verify their
account. In April 2015, the ATO completed its second phase of
deployment, the implementation of Nuance’s FreeSpeech solution, a
first of its kind deployment in Australia that verifies customers
during inbound and outbound calls without intrusive questioning,
providing a seamless experience for customers. Combined, the new
VocalPassword and FreeSpeech voice biometrics solutions provide an
added layer of security for ATO customers, helping to prevent and
detect identity theft.
This streamlined approach has let the ATO quickly boost call
completion rates, while also improving security for customers using
the contact center. Some initial results from the two-phase
deployment include:
- Between September 2014 and mid July
2015, more than 760,000 Australians have enrolled for the voice
biometrics solution. This is an insight into the growth expected
during the 2015 tax period: the busiest period for ATO call
centers.
- Early customer feedback has indicated
that the contact center experience has improved, with repeat
callers experiencing a 40-45 second reduction in the average time
that they are on the phone with an agent.
- Within the first 12 days of the
FreeSpeech release, total FreeSpeech enrollments were 25 percent of
the volume of VocalPassword enrollments for the previous eight
months, highlighting the simplicity and seamless nature of the
system.
- There have been over 480,000 successful
VocalPassword verifications and over 104,000 successful FreeSpeech
verifications upon the Australian public’s use of the system.
“No one wants to be on a call to the ATO longer than they need
to, but we must ensure that convenience and ease of access are
effectively balanced with our mutual need for security” said John
Dardo, acting deputy commissioner, ATO. “With Nuance’s voice
biometrics solutions, we have introduced a secure, fast and easy
way to verify a customer’s identity, providing a greatly improved
experience for our customers and for our staff. The streamlined
authentication has allowed the ATO to quickly boost call completion
rates, whilst also improving customer security. Customer and staff
feedback has been very positive and they see this as another
example of us delivering contemporary client experiences.”
“All organizations are competing to provide new and engaging
customer service experiences that are simple and secure,” said
Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager for
the Enterprise Division of Nuance. “The customer experience is at
the core of Nuance’s voice biometrics technology, a premise which
aligns perfectly with the ATO’s organizational goals. Using
Nuance’s voice biometrics solutions, the ATO has been able to
greatly improve its customer service experience, while reducing
costs and delivering an authentication process that eases the
burden on both customers and service agents.”
Organizations around the globe are recognizing the growing
consumer frustration with PINs, passwords and security questions,
and are addressing it head-on to make customer authentication more
convenient and more secure than knowledge-based authentication.
Nuance’s voice biometrics solutions have been adopted globally by
other large organizations, such as ING Netherlands, Santander
Mexico, SK Telecom, Tangerine Bank,
Tatra Banka, Turkcell and Vodacom South Africa.
New data from Opus Research shows that the voice biometrics
authentication market is poised to grow from $200M (2013) to $750M
globally in 2017. Nuance voice biometrics technology leads the
industry, with over 50 million voiceprints deployed by its
customers. (Opus Research: Census Report: Voice Biometrics Census
and Forecast, November 2014).
For more information about Nuance Voice Biometrics technology,
please visit: www.nuance.com/voice-biometrics.
About Nuance Communications, Inc.Nuance Communications,
Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language
solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its
technologies, applications and services make the user experience
more compelling by transforming the way people interact with
devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of
businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more
information, please visit www.nuance.com.
Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in
the United States of America and/or other countries. All other
company names or product names may be the trademarks of their
respective owners.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150714005227/en/
USNuance Communications, Inc.Erica Hill,
781-888-5518erica.hill@nuance.comorAUBurson-Marsteller for
NuancePamela-Sue Klioufis, +61 2 9928
1585Pamela.Klioufis@bm.com
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