Technology from Nuance Communications in enabling Australia’s first voice biometrics call center deployment, the company has announced. The system has been implemented by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Installed in collaboration with network services company Optus, the voice biometrics system completed its first phase back in September of last year, when Nuance’s VocalPassword was implemented to let callers log in to their accounts via passphrase. Now, with the second and final phase of the project completed, Nuance’s FreeSpeech system identifies callers passively and seamlessly via voice recognition.
As in other such deployments, the system is seen as an improvement to security, customer convenience, and organizational efficiency. ATO gets about nine million inbound calls each year, and in three quarters of those cases an ATO representative needs to verify the caller’s identity. By eliminating the need for inefficient biographic question-and-answer checks, the system has already cut average phone times by up to 45 seconds for repeat callers, according to early customer feedback. And it’s on track to garner a lot of interest from callers, with 480,000 VocalPassword verifications and 104,000 FreeSpeech verifications logged already.
Nuance deployments are often at banks, given such organizations’ intense need for accurate customer authentication in call center situations, but the company’s technology is highly versatile, finding its way even into smart car systems and new smart home devices. With this latest deployment with a major government agency, the company further garnishes its reputation in the global industry.
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July 14, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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