Speech analytics has become an essential tool for call centers in recent years. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, sentiment, and preferences. In this article, we will explore the top use cases for speech analytics in call centers and how it can benefit your business.
One of the primary use cases for speech analytics in call centers is improving customer satisfaction. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify trends in customer behavior and sentiment, allowing them to proactively address issues before they escalate. Speech analytics can also help call centers identify areas for improvement in their customer service processes and provide targeted training for agents.
2. Reducing Call Volume
Speech analytics can also help call centers reduce call volume by identifying common issues and providing self-service solutions. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify common questions and issues and provide self-service options, such as automated responses or knowledge bases, to address these concerns. This can reduce call volume and improve the overall customer experience.
3. Enhancing Agent Performance
Speech analytics can also be used to enhance agent performance. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify areas where agents may need additional training or support. Speech analytics can also help call centers identify high-performing agents and share their best practices with the rest of the team. This can lead to increased agent satisfaction and improved overall performance.
4. Compliance Monitoring
Speech analytics can also be used to monitor compliance in call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify potential compliance issues and take corrective action before they become a problem. Speech analytics can also help call centers identify trends in compliance issues and provide targeted training for agents.
5. Sales and Marketing Insights
Speech analytics can provide valuable insights for sales and marketing teams. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify customer preferences, pain points, and buying behaviors. This information can be used to improve sales and marketing strategies, target specific customer segments, and identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
6. Fraud Detection
Speech analytics can also be used to detect fraud in call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify potential fraudsters and take appropriate action to prevent fraud. Speech analytics can also help call centers identify trends in fraudulent behavior and provide targeted training for agents.
7. Predictive Analytics
Speech analytics can also be used for predictive analytics in call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can predict future customer behavior and tailor their customer service and sales strategies accordingly. This can help call centers improve customer retention, increase sales, and stay ahead of the competition.
8. Root Cause Analysis
Speech analytics can also be used for root cause analysis in call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify the root causes of customer issues and take appropriate action to address them. This can help call centers improve the overall customer experience and reduce customer churn.
9. Operational Efficiency
Speech analytics can also be used to improve operational efficiency in call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can identify areas where processes can be streamlined and automated. This can help call centers reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve overall performance.
10. Competitive Advantage
Finally, speech analytics can provide a competitive advantage for call centers. By using speech analytics to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, call centers can provide a better overall customer experience and stay ahead of the competition. This can lead to increased customer loyalty, higher sales, and improved business performance.
Conclusion
Speech analytics is a powerful tool for call centers. By analyzing customer interactions, call centers can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, sentiment, and preferences. From improving customer satisfaction to reducing call volume, enhancing agent performance, and providing a competitive advantage, speech analytics can benefit call centers in numerous ways. By leveraging this technology, call centers can improve their overall performance, reduce costs, and stay ahead of the competition.
If you are considering implementing speech analytics in your call center, it is important to work with a vendor that has experience in the industry and can provide a solution that meets your specific needs. With the right partner, you can unlock the full potential of speech analytics and drive success for your call center and your business as a whole.
Find out how Recordia enables all of this through its complete conversational intelligence solution by clicking here.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards established by major credit card companies to protect sensitive information related to credit and debit card transactions. Any business that handles payment card data must be compliant with PCI DSS to ensure the security of their customers’ information. In this article, we will discuss the top 10 things you need to know about PCI DSS for call centers and other businesses that handle payment card data.
PCI DSS is a set of security standards established by major credit card companies to protect sensitive information related to credit and debit card transactions. Any business that handles payment card data must comply with PCI DSS to ensure the security of their customers’ information.
2. Who Needs to Be PCI DSS Compliant?
Any business that accepts credit card payments or handles payment card data must comply with PCI DSS. This includes call centers, e-commerce websites, and brick-and-mortar retail stores.
3. What are the Requirements for PCI DSS Compliance?
There are 12 requirements for PCI DSS compliance, including building and maintaining a secure network, protecting cardholder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access control measures, and regularly monitoring and testing networks.
4. What are the Consequences of Non-Compliance?
The consequences of non-compliance with PCI DSS can be severe, including fines, legal action, and damage to your business’s reputation. Non-compliance can also result in the loss of your ability to accept credit card payments.
5. How Can Businesses Achieve PCI DSS Compliance?
Businesses can achieve PCI DSS compliance by following the 12 requirements outlined in the standard, conducting regular security audits, and working with a qualified security assessor.
6. What is the Role of Call Centers in PCI DSS Compliance?
Call centers play a critical role in PCI DSS compliance, as they often handle large volumes of sensitive payment card data. Call centers must implement the necessary security measures to protect this data, including encrypting sensitive information, limiting access to only those employees who need it, and regularly monitoring and testing networks for vulnerabilities.
7. What are the Challenges of PCI DSS Compliance for Call Centers?
One of the biggest challenges of PCI DSS compliance for call centers is managing the large volume of sensitive payment card data that they handle. Call centers must implement measures to ensure that this data is protected at all times, including during transmission and storage.
8. What are the Benefits of PCI DSS Compliance for Call Centers?
PCI DSS compliance can provide several benefits for call centers, including protecting sensitive payment card data, avoiding legal and financial consequences, and building trust with customers. Compliance can also help streamline call center operations by reducing the risk of security breaches and data loss.
9. How Can Call Centers Improve Their PCI DSS Compliance?
Call centers can improve their PCI DSS compliance by implementing strong security measures, conducting regular security audits, and providing ongoing training and education for employees.
10. What is the Future of PCI DSS Compliance?
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, PCI DSS compliance requirements are likely to change as well. Businesses must stay up-to-date on the latest compliance requirements to ensure the ongoing security of their customers’ payment card data.
Conclusion
PCI DSS compliance is essential for any business that handles payment card data, including call centers. By following the 12 requirements outlined in the standard and implementing the necessary security measures, call centers can protect sensitive payment card data, avoid legal and financial consequences, and build trust with their customers. Ongoing vigilance and education are critical to maintaining compliance.
Want to find out more about these new methodologies for PCI DSS compliance? Discover more about it, here!
For any business that accepts credit card payments, it is important to be familiar with PCI compliance. Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is a set of security standards established to protect sensitive information related to credit and debit card transactions. These standards apply to any organization that handles payment card data, including call centers.
In this article, we will cover the basics of PCI compliance and how it can benefit your business.
PCI compliance is important for several reasons. First and foremost, it helps protect sensitive payment card data from being stolen or compromised. This is especially important for call centers, which often handle large volumes of sensitive information.
Secondly, being PCI compliant can help protect your business from legal and financial consequences. If your business is found to be non-compliant with PCI standards, you may be subject to fines, legal action, and damage to your reputation.
Finally, being PCI compliant can give your customers peace of mind. Knowing that their payment card data is being handled in a secure manner can help build trust in your business and lead to increased customer loyalty.
Understanding the PCI Compliance Requirements
There are several different levels of PCI compliance, depending on the volume of payment card transactions your business handles. The requirements for each level can vary, but generally include the following:
Build and Maintain a Secure Network
This involves implementing measures to secure your network and prevent unauthorized access. This can include firewalls, secure passwords, and regular security updates.
Protect Cardholder Data
This involves implementing measures to protect cardholder data, including encrypting sensitive information and storing it in a secure location.
Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
This involves regularly monitoring your network for vulnerabilities and taking steps to address any weaknesses that are identified.
Implement Strong Access Control Measures
This involves limiting access to sensitive information to only those employees who need it, and implementing measures to prevent unauthorized access.
Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
This involves regularly monitoring your network for security breaches, and conducting regular testing to identify potential vulnerabilities.
Maintain an Information Security Policy
This involves developing and implementing an information security policy that outlines the steps your business will take to protect sensitive data.
Achieving PCI Compliance
Achieving PCI compliance can be a complex process, and may require the help of a qualified security professional. However, there are several steps your business can take to get started:
Determine Your Level of Compliance: Determine which level of compliance your business falls under based on the volume of payment card transactions you handle.
Complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire: This will help you identify areas where your business may need to improve its security measures.
Implement Necessary Security Measures: Based on the results of your self-assessment, implement any necessary security measures to ensure compliance with PCI standards.
Conduct Regular Security Audits: Regularly monitor and test your network for vulnerabilities, and address any weaknesses that are identified.
Work with a Qualified Security Assessor: Consider working with a qualified security assessor to help ensure that your business is fully compliant with PCI standards.
Conclusion
In conclusion, PCI compliance is an essential component of any business that handles payment card data, including call centers. By implementing the necessary security measures, your business can help protect sensitive payment card data, avoid legal and financial consequences, and build trust with your customers.
Want to find out more about these new methodologies for PCI DSS compliance? Discover more about it, here!
The high competitiveness and availability of a wide variety of products on the market have caused brands to seek to differentiate themselves at all costs. Many companies are focusing their efforts on storytelling or reinforcing values to try to win customer loyalty, but the key really lies in trust.
Trust is essential to the relationship established between a brand and a customer. And to achieve this, from a business point of view, it is the customer service department that is at the forefront of generating this connection. If the customer’s experiences with the brand are positive and build trust, it will translate into brand loyalty.
But what happens when a brand offers customer service that can be improved?
The consequences of poor customer service
Loyalty is based primarily on a company’s ability to solve customer problems at first contact.
For this reason, organizations should redefine contact centers to fit into their loyalty strategies, seeking to make them more than just basic support: a space to address broader issues of central importance to many.
In this new context, this means that contact centers will have to evolve to become a central part of customer loyalty and move into a more proactive and attentive role. With this, the role of contact center agents will also have to change to become brand ambassadors, able to understand and proactively respond to consumer needs and create satisfying customer experiences.
As a result, the importance of a good customer experience has become such that some surveys even state that 73% of customers cite experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions, behind the price and product quality.
Investing in CX has become a key strategy for companies, focusing their business on listening to the Voice of the Customer in order to increase customer loyalty, create better products, provide better service and really understand the current customer experience with brands.
More than 80% say that improving customer experience is the most important strategic objective and investment driver for Contact Centers
Source: Deloitte
It is for this reason that not listening to the Voice of the Customer, ignoring their needs and providing poor customer experiences ultimately results in losing customers which, in turn, will drive them to competence. In fact, a Microsoft Customer Service Survey revealed that 61% of consumers who have switched brands are due to poor service.
Some of the causes of a service that can be improved…
Lack of active listening and inability to understand customers’ needs: not being able to listen to customers’ needs and concerns is often the main cause of poor service. By wanting to resolve customer issues as quickly as possible, agents may rush through a solution before giving the customer a chance to explain themselves and what they need, resulting in customers feeling as if they are “talking to a robot”.
Not resolving the issue: Not being able to resolve a customer’s problem during their first call or not resolving it at all is another key point of poor service. In fact, according to a Northridge Group report, 62% of customers surveyed had to make multiple contact attempts to resolve their issue and 1 in 10 even said their issue was never resolved.
Long waiting times or redirecting the call: When a customer calls a contact center to ask a question or solve a problem and has to wait a long time to be attended to, it can give the impression that you don’t care enough to offer help to your customers. If this is added that, on many occasions, customers are redirected to other telephone extensions so that they can attend to their case and that they are forced to repeat the reason for their call several times, the image offered by the company is not the correct one. It denotes that the quality of customer service is deficient.
How to improve customer service and increase loyalty
Undoubtedly, the best way to solve poor customer service is to put the customer and the customer experience at the center of business strategies. Thus, taking into account the Voice of the Customer is essential to know in depth the needs, concerns and desires of customers. But what actions can be taken?
1. Create a CX-based strategy
As mentioned above, listening to the Voice of the Customer and understanding their needs is a perfect opportunity to improve every process carried out in the company, including the customer service experience before, during and after the purchase. In addition, listening to customers and focusing strategies on customer experience is beneficial not only to create a good customer service and increase customer loyalty, but also is the best way to optimize products or services to save costs and improve ROI.
2. Providing training for agents
Considering the training of contact center agents as a mere formality is a serious mistake. Contact center agents are often the first point of contact that a customer has with the company and, therefore, should be extensions of their brands. Therefore, it is essential for agents to improve their listening skills, learn to ask the right questions, or obtain the necessary problem-solving skills to provide good customer service and experience.
3. New solutions to improve customer service
Using new tools or conversational intelligence solutions to automate the analysis of conversations and being able to detect keywords that denote complaints, recurring problems, dissatisfaction or possible errors in service allows you to have a deep understanding of what is happening in the contact center. If brands can identify and analyze how customers feel about their service or products, they will be able to develop a better experience and increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. In addition, automating this analysis allows for an improved and personalized training for each agent and each specific situation, perfecting customer service methods.
Complete conversational intelligence solutions such as Recordia allow the analysis of 100% of the conversations in a Contact Center and facilitate the analysis of these conversations to discover possible problems or dissatisfactions in customer service in order to create an excellent customer experience.
Do you want to discover how solutions like Recordia allow you to improve your Contact Center’s customer service? Find out all the details here!
The new reality in which we find ourselves and the emergence of new needs regarding the services and products offered to us have accelerated the transformation process in many economic sectors, including the financial one. In fact, the increase in the use of digital banking has been in proportion to the reduction of visits to bank branches during the last two years.
Faced with this new situation, along with the emergence of digital native banks, the neobanks, which allow managing all financial processes 100% online, traditional banks, in order to keep their customers and keep them satisfied, have needed to adapt to the new paradigm and bet on a digital experience, in which the telephone service channel becomes even more important.
The power of data
Among the most important technological demands being made by these entities are Data & Analytics services. The sector is making great efforts to know its customers better and to be able to anticipate their demands through data analysis.
Obtaining the best knowledge of the customer and knowing what they do, how they interact, what needs they have or how they relate, together with the infinite amount of data that financial institutions handle, allow them to anticipate the next actions to be taken with that customer through predictive models based on machine learning.
Much of this data is hidden in the conversations that take place mostly through chatbots and voice. The artificial intelligence and machine learning behind this type of chatbots “allow the machine to guide the customer and advise him, at least initially, on the solutions that can benefit him the most, those that are most appropriate to his needs”.
In addition to chatbots, other technologies, such as voice banking, make it possible to carry out transactions and different operations, such as transfers, payments, or checking the bank account balance, using natural language. This also means a new reality regarding how to authenticate customers securely to perform these transactions without the risk of fraud or identity theft, among others.
As we have mentioned, data is very important and most interactions that financial institutions carry out take place through their contact centers, and, in fact, most of them take place through voice.
These conversations have a lot of information that if they are not analyzed through solutions that enable transcription (voice to text) and analysis models of these conversations would be wasted.
To this importance of conversational data must be added that, since digital banking and Fintech are increasing in popularity, the importance of customer experience or Know Your Customer processes to authenticate customers are increasing in turn.
In recent years, commercial banking customers have changed, they no longer make the same kind of decisions as before when it comes to purchasing a product or service, now they also buy an experience. This means that the customer values much more personalized attention, fast troubleshooting and, therefore, a better customer experience.
Due to this change in trend, as we mentioned, the banking sector needs to know how to convert the source of first-hand knowledge provided by its customers in their calls into useful data that can be used in the decision-making process. Thus, many companies in the banking and financial sector are already applying innovative solutions based on artificial intelligence, such as voice analysis or biometrics, to take advantage of the useful data provided by customers in their calls to the contact center.
5 ways to benefit from speech analytics in finance and banking
1. Customer Experience
Today, more than ever, listening to the customer has become a critical task in understanding the needs of your target audience and customers. Companies seek to design a customer experience according to their expectations (CX) in order to obtain long-term benefits such as customer loyalty and new customer acquisition.
In fact, listening to the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and using it in the right way increases customer loyalty, creates better products, provides better service and understands the customer experience faster and more efficiently.
73% of customers list experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions, behind price and product quality.
Source: PwC.
Voice conversational intelligence solutions allow analyzing 100% of the conversations that take place with customers and allow defining related topics, detecting keywords or phrases that appear in the process of interaction with the customer and that allow understanding what is happening with him, categorizing calls by topics.
2. Quality control and agent training
Thanks to voice analytics, the financial industry and its contact centers can evaluate voice calls faster, with less subjectivity and greater accuracy than the evaluation provided by manual methods. In addition, it can ensure compliance with quality scripts, evaluate and quantify agent performance, identify agents in need of training, and reduce training time for new hires.
3. Trends and opportunities
Speech analytics allows you to define better sales strategies, detect keywords about trends or opportunities or collect the conversations with the best results.
With speech analytics solutions it is possible to understand how customers respond to campaigns, products or investments in order to know which strategies achieve better results and how an effective commercial campaign can be established.
4. Early churn detection
Conversational intelligence and speech analytics solutions help reduce complaints by highlighting recurring issues and gaining a complete picture of customers’ concerns or negative experiences.
After all, for the financial and banking industry, detecting warning signs in customer service that denote potential customer churn or intentions to switch banks is essential for a highly competitive industry with fewer and fewer loyal customers.
Despite all the digital and compliance mechanisms in the financial industry, there are still many losses caused by fraudsters. In fact, contact center agents sometimes don’t know they’ve been scammed until it’s too late.
To prevent this from happening or reduce the damage, companies are using speech analytics on the one hand and biometric authentication on the other. Speech analytics helps to analyze such conversations, obtain keywords and markers that warn of fraud, and create scripts to secure contact center processes.
On the other hand, the financial sector is also using voice biometric authentication solutions to help manage large volumes of calls and provide a secure and robust method of customer authentication through the biometric voice fingerprint, unique to each person.
The most complete voice analysis and biometric authentication solutions, such as Recordia, allow you to apply this technology to all the areas we show you in this article, providing a higher quality in customer services, a better customer experience and, therefore, obtaining better results.
Discover all the benefits that Recordia brings to this industry by clicking here.
Even in the Contact Center industry, the management of sensitive data is a growing issue and the number of resources allocated to compliance and risk management is increasing.
Contact Centers must carefully follow and stay abreast of the guidelines required by regulations pertaining to telephone call collection, such as PCI DSS, and must be able to ensure constant monitoring to ensure compliance.
Although PCI DSS compliance is not a legal requirement for running a Contact Center, it is mandatory for those wishing to process transactions with major card providers.
PCI DSS is a set of security standards that helps companies prevent fraud and theft of credit card data, which involves both the cardholder’s personal data and authentication data.
PCI DSS emerged in 2004 from the union of the world’s largest credit and debit card companies, AMEX, VISA, MasterCard, Discover and JCB, who decided to create a single standard common to all of them, since, previously, each of these companies had their own security standards (which resembled each other), which could cause some confusion.
It includes a set of 12 mandatory standards created to protect the data that is processed, transmitted and stored during payment transactions initiated by the major credit card brands.
PCI DSS in Contact Centers
Contact Centers are required to comply with a large number of rules and regulations, depending on the industry or how it is applied.
Call records are necessary for performance evaluation, but also to facilitate the development of any legal procedures and to ensure regulatory compliance and it is for this reason that doing without call recording is not an option. Thus, the need to control and analyze 100% of calls is becoming a fundamental requirement.
One of the most worrying regulations involving call recording is PCI DSS due to the amount of sensitive credit card or transaction data that can be handled. But to ensure compliance, contact centers have used traditional methods that, in many cases, made this task difficult.
Among the traditional methods used by Contact Centers, three stand out:
Manual Filtering: this method consists of a supervisor, once the calls have ended, manually eliminating or hiding the part of the call that contains sensitive data.
Use of Touch Tone: this consists of including the key dial tone to cover sensitive data referring to passwords or card numbers.
Record on Demand: the agent has the possibility to stop recording the call just before the sensitive information is about to be broadcast.
As we have said, these traditional methods bring with them numerous drawbacks that make it difficult to be 100% PCI DSS compliant. Manual screening is time-consuming and, in many cases, can be unreliable due to human error as a result of being a repetitive task. In the case of the use of touch tones, the problem is that it is easy to identify which key it is. And, in the case of on-demand recording, there are 3 key elements to consider that can be a problem for the contact center:
The recording may not resume due to agent carelessness, losing a part of the conversation.
The agent may be inattentive or unaware that he/she should stop recording. It is even possible that the customer may anticipate the recording stop and sensitive data may be recorded as a result.
Improper use of the recording pause by the agent, leading to loss of important parts of the call needed for quality assessment.
New ways to comply with PCI DSS with conversational intelligence
According to PCI DSS, all payment card data that is classified as Sensitive Authentication Data, which is the full tracking data, CAV2/CVC2/CVV2/CVV2/CID codes, and the PIN block, must be anonymized.
There are some general cardholder data that can be censored, which is permitted to be stored as long as it is in a secure site with access restrictions. These include the primary account number (PAN), cardholder name, service code and expiration date. But it is highly recommended to protect and anonymize this data as hackers can use this information to take advantage of your customers.
Today, methods of ensuring PCI DSS compliance are focused on automation through conversational intelligence and speech analytics to anonymize data that qualifies as sensitive.
Anonymization techniques through artificial intelligence, such as that used by Recordia, automatically detect and remove PCI data from call recordings using a highly accurate speech recognition engine and machine learning algorithms. Credit card data is automatically erased from the recording and replaced with white noise, returning the cleaned recording and transcript with the data removed to users.
By using sensitive data anonymization, call recordings can be easily accessed and shared to reveal key customer information without violating PCI DSS compliance standards. Thanks to these solutions and technologies, contact center agents and managers do not see increased management time, efficiently detecting, redacting and deleting all PCI data from call recordings, transcripts and conversations in the background.
Want to find out more about these new methodologies to ensure PCI DSS compliance? Let us tell you all about itby clicking here!
Global rates of economic crime and fraud remain on the rise over the last few years and, in fact, in the last 2 years almost half of the companies reported having suffered some type of fraud.
Among the frauds most reported by companies, according to PwC, those related to cybercrime are among the most numerous. New forms of payment and the popularization of neobanks and telematic and digital transactions are revolutionizing the world as we know it. While it is true that they make life easier for millions of customers every day, they are also giving way to new forms of crime and fraud that cybercriminals are carrying out.
Among the most popular frauds today, the creation of synthetic identities is among the favorites of cybercriminals, and it is estimated that losses from this type of fraud in 2021 range around 80% of total credit card fraud.
A synthetic identity refers to an identity created by fraudsters, which is composed of mixing attributes of real people with fictitious attributes to carry out fraudulent practices.
The use of these real attributes brings the advantage that the fraudster reinforces that synthetic identity allowing him to successfully pass certain filters and, thus, use it to deceive a company or financial entity, acquire new driver’s licenses and/or passports.
Identity thieves look for their victims among those who are least likely or able to regularly monitor their financial accounts.
What types of identity theft are carried out with this technique?
1. Financial identity theft:
This is the most common of all, as, it is the simplest. It occurs any time someone uses a victim’s information to profit from fraudulent financial transactions. Such as: logging into your bank account and transferring money, adding your name to the victim’s bank account, submitting fraudulent tax documentation, applying for loans and credit in the victim’s name, and making purchases with a credit card that does not belong to you.
Cybercriminals usually make a series of simultaneous large purchases, and once approved, stop using the identity to apply for credit and abandon repayment of the debt on these large purchases or loans.
2. Criminal identity theft:
Occurs when someone assumes an identity in order to avoid legal consequences. It usually occurs when a person provides false information to the police at the time of arrest, as criminals possess official government-issued documents fraudulently obtained through a synthetic identity or have acquired a fake ID card.
Las consecuencias de este tipo de robo pueden durar años, pues es difícil probar ante la policía la inocencia de la víctima mientras que no se encuentre al verdadero culpable. Además, muchas víctimas descubren por casualidad el uso de su identidad para estas prácticas, ya que el robo puede pasar desapercibido hasta que no se haga una verificación de antecedentes penales.
This type of theft usually occurs when the criminal receives medical treatment that was intended for the victim. This type of theft is high risk in countries with private healthcare systems. The problem comes when the victim requests medical care and the treatment he or she needs is denied because the thief has already acquired it on another occasion.
4. Child identity theft:
It is very common to steal social security or ID numbers of minors to open bank accounts and, with them, take out loans, acquire new driver’s licenses and passports.
Children are an easy target for fraudsters due to the current trend of children surfing the web at a young age and unwittingly sharing all kinds of data. These data leaks are easiest in gaming chat rooms and social networks.
In carrying out these thefts from children, criminals get a time window, sometimes years, since this scam is not detected until these children open a bank account for the first time or contract their first telephone line. Because children often have no debt or credit, their identities are very valuable to those looking for a “clean” source of credit.
How do I know if I am a victim?
There are several signs that can serve as alerts. Among them:
Receive text messages or emails with authentication codes for accounts you don’t know.
You receive collection notices or calls for a debt that does not correspond to you.
Invoices for products or services that you have not performed appear on your card statements.
Statements from an unfamiliar credit card appear on your statements.
There are errors on a credit report.
A store credit card you did not apply for shows up in your mailbox.
You are turned down for credit when you have good credit.
You stop receiving monthly statements from your bank.
You are denied a tax refund.
You find a medical record you don’t recognize.
Voice biometrics: the secure method of avoiding synthetic identities
Companies that require telephone customer identification are at risk of fraud attacks and identity theft because there is sometimes insufficient security. In addition, security questions or passwords are becoming obsolete due to their unreliability, which is why biometric solutions for customer identification are becoming essential.
By applying voiceprint biometric authentication, such as Recordia, an extra layer of security will be achieved without relying on insecure passwords or other access methods, greatly reducing the risk of being a victim of this type of attack. The voiceprint is unique to each person, so it is impossible for it to be replicated, creating a fully effective, secure, and seamless method of identity authentication.
Recordia, through its background verification screen, verifies that the fingerprint matches the customer’s voice. In case of a mismatch, alerts will display a warning of possible fraud or impersonation.
Find out more about voiceprint identity authentication and how Recordia helps you avoid this type of fraud by clicking here.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) now defines Medicare Advantage agents and brokers as TPMOs (third-party marketing organizations).
Effective October 1, 2022, CMS has imposed new call recording and liability disclaimer requirements for TPMOs.
Among the new requirements coming into effect soon, agents and brokers will have to record all sales calls with beneficiaries completely, including the enrollment process. Recordings must be retained for 10 years in accordance with HIPAA and these requirements will apply to new and existing customers, as well as landlines and mobile lines.
Whether a person is approaching 65 or has been on Medicare for years, there is no denying an onslaught of information they receive every day about Medicare, the plans they have access to, and the push to “act now.”
CMS’ purpose for including these new requirements is to get two things straightened out:
The seniors targeted by these plans regularly receive information via mail, visit websites that provide “Medicare information,” and see commercials in media featuring big-name celebrities promoting Medicare Advantage options. But, when one of these interested consumers calls or fills out a form on a website to inquire about Medicare Advantage plans, they are not told whether they are getting direct help or are being referred to a third party.
Consumers are not aware of the scope of options considered when making a Medicare plan recommendation because the terms and conditions are often unclear.
What does the new call recording requirement imposed by CMS entail?
Agents and brokers must record all sales calls with beneficiaries in their entirety, including the enrollment process. Recordings must be retained in a HIPAA-compliant manner for 10 years. This will apply to new and existing customers.
What is considered a sales call? Anything that falls within the “enrollment chain,” i.e., all calls from the time a customer is told about a Medicare Advantage plan to the end of the enrollment process in that plan. This includes those calls to prospective customers, scheduling appointments, compiling provider and drug lists, conducting educational meetings, and telephone enrollments. All of these calls must be recorded, whether they are landline or wireless, due to the new compliance requirement.
It should be noted that although Medicare Supplements are not included in the new call recording rules, if a Medicare Supplement is being sold in conjunction with a Prescription Drug Plan, the call must be recorded due to the Part D discussion.
Clinics, hospitals, health insurance providers and their subcontractors rely heavily on unified communications and VoIP services to manage their patient information, interactions and communications.
When a patient needs to access their health records or a healthcare provider needs to reference or share personal health information, the transmission must be made over a secured channel to comply with HIPAA regulations.
HIPAA, which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, was implemented in the U.S. healthcare system to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. It outlines the requirements and set of national standards that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must enforce in electronic and telephonic healthcare transactions.
With technological advances in electronic communications and transactions, HIPAA helps protect the privacy of individuals and their health information.
What does a call recording system need to comply with HIPAA?
Under HIPAA, professionals must observe the law’s three rules governing privacy and security. These are as follows:
Privacy Rule: ensures privacy by keeping information that could identify a patient protected.
Security Rule: this rule governs how professionals keep electronic medical records secure.
Breach Notification Rule: If a security or data breach occurs, this rule governs who an entity informs and how.
Therefore, call recording solutions used to meet the new requirement for those agents and brokers who come Medicare Advantage and ensure HIPAA compliance must obey the following requirements:
The call recording solution must be fully secure and keep all conversations encrypted and encrypted on a secure server.
The recording solution must have 10-year custody of and access to each recorded conversation from a secure portal.
There must be an access restriction, being able to configure and monitor the access and privileges of the users through secure authentications.
The most complete solutions, such as Recordia, allow call recording through a SaaS service in the cloud that is totally secure and meets the highest security standards. Recordia allows:
Capture and custody: record all interactions legally and adjust the custody period and the geographical location of the servers where the encrypted and secure captures are to be stored.
Centralizes and manages recordings in a single program, all recordings and captures remain secure within Recordia.
Ensures authenticity and transparency, thanks to the HASH fingerprint it is demonstrated that each interaction remains unaltered from end to end.
It comprehensively controls access, limiting access to data; it configures access and permissions for Recordia users. Two-factor authentication (A2F) is required for access.
Retrieve and share all interactions: the trace of interactions can be retrieved at any time in case of audit or query, or if their modification or deletion is required by users.
Are you a TPMO and need to record sales calls from a cell phone?
Many of these agents who will now be required to record their Medicare Advantage sales calls do not have the resources to be able to do so. As small businesses or even individual insurance brokers, having the software and infrastructure in place to record the calls and keep them securely stored becomes impossible.
In addition, these small companies find that the government did not impose the task of providing this type of support to large insurance companies and agencies.
For this reason, solutions such as Recordia Telephony System (RTS) allow these sales agents to operate worldwide by providing an international telephone network for mobile lines that allows them to call from anywhere. RTS works over the Internet, allowing TPMOs to record all calls within Recordia in a safe and secure environment without complex integrations or the need to switch carriers or PBXs.
Find out more about how Recordia can help you comply with the new call recording requirements imposed by CMS for Medicare Advantage agents and brokers by clicking here.
Customer experience (CX) has increased its importance within the corporate agenda to the point where it is considered a strategic pillar of differentiation. This is mostly because customer behavior is constantly changing and products and services are becoming increasingly similar, as well as being more easily comparable online than ever before.
As a result, differentiation by quality or price is no longer so decisive in attracting or keeping customers, instead, it is more important the perception that customers have of a brand or a company as a result of their interaction with it.
According to Forbes, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that are not. But the benefits of customer experience in Contact Centers are not an industry secret and, in fact, most Contact Centers have already begun their transformation to incorporate a customer-centric vision.
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that are not.
Source: Forbes
Today, more than ever, listening to the customer has become a critical task in understanding the needs of your target audience and customers. Companies seek to design a customer experience in line with their expectations in order to obtain long-term benefits such as customer loyalty and new customer acquisition.
For these reasons, more and more companies are investing in tools to monitor data sources such as Voice of the Customer to help them improve the customer experience and increase loyalty.
What should a Contact Center do to follow a strategy focused on customer experience?
In order to measure customer experience, different metrics can be used to provide information on how positive or negative the customer experience has been. These include, for example, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and the Customer Effort Score (CES), but these indicators do not refer to the whole customer experience and do not measure important aspects such as the emotional and subjective perceptions of customers.
With the emergence of new technologies such as Speech Analytics, which allows in-depth analysis of conversations and therefore the acquisition of knowledge from customer feedback (Voice of Customer VoC), we have the possibility of measuring other important aspects that have a direct impact on the improvement of the customer experience.
1. Listen to customer needs and concerns
Listening to customer needs and concerns is key to Customer-Centric strategies. For years, companies have been listening to customer calls to better understand their needs. Listening to the Voice of the Customer and using it in the right way increases customer loyalty, creates better products, delivers better service and understands the customer experience faster and more efficiently.
But listening to every conversation the contact center has with its customers is sometimes impossible due to the high volume of calls being made. Speech analytics solutions that allow listening to 100% of the conversations are becoming the key to efficiently carrying out customer-centric strategies and improving the customer experience.
2. Knowing the current customer and employee experience
By knowing and understanding customer and employee experiences, Contact Centers can drive retention, processes and profitability. As such, those who focus their strategies on Customer Experience seek to identify opportunities to increase employee loyalty and retention, conduct customer retention programs or identify pain points within processes.
In this way, the objective is to obtain a global picture of the current customer and employee experience in order to subsequently create personalized experiences and services that help increase customer and employee retention and loyalty.
3. Personalization of products and services
It is useless for the Contact Center to listen to customers’ needs and concerns if it is not going to do anything about them. Trying to adapt products and services to these needs or solve the concerns that customers show is imperative to improve the customer experience and generate greater retention.
In addition, the more personalized the services offered by the Contact Center, the greater the connection between customer and brand, and thus the greater the satisfaction and loyalty.
4. Agent training
Contact Center agents are the face of the organization and are often the customer’s first point of contact when a complaint, query or request arises. The impression they create sets the tone for the experience and those that are consistently positive go a long way to building brand loyalty and trust.
The quality of Contact Center agents is critical to their performance. Therefore, successfully recruiting skilled agents and training them properly is imperative to achieve an exceptional customer experience and an effective customer-centric strategy.
5. Performing quality controls
While Contact Center agents are the face of the organization, it is crucial for customer experience and satisfaction to align their behavior with your messages and behavior, otherwise, customer retention and loyalty will be challenging.
Performing quality controls of the service offered becomes essential to building productive and satisfying customer-centric strategies. In this way, it is easier for the Contact Center to offer more complete feedback to agents, providing them with better training and education and improving the quality of service, which translates into greater customer satisfaction.
Conversational intelligence solutions, such as Recordia, provide contact centers with data and analytics extracted from all customer interactions, leveraging predictive insights and allowing them to connect more closely with their customers, anticipate behaviors and identify CX issues and opportunities in real-time.
Find out how to follow a customer-centric strategy and improve customer experience by clicking here.
Oracle is one of the technology companies that is making a profound change to its applications and services. This means that some applications will no longer be supported in the future. Among the applications that will no longer be supported is Oracle ISR or Interactive Session Recorder. This component is very closely connected to Oracle SBC or Acme Packet SBC, which is a widely used SBC in the industry and has a SIPREC interface that is used for call recording.
Oracle Communications Interactive Session Recorder (ISR) is an application designed to eliminate the costs and complexity of call recording for enterprise compliance. The solution features an open, standards-based architecture that dramatically simplified the capture and storage of real-time IP communications sessions across the enterprise. Oracle ISR leveraged a modular design for superior scalability and economics, offering a broad set of APIs for maximum extensibility and flexibility.
But as we indicated, due to the continuous changes in their applications and services, it is highly probable that in the mid-long term Oracle will stop providing support for Oracle ISR customers. So, what can be done to continue recording calls and have an infrastructure that supports it at the lowest possible cost? We show you an alternative: the complete call recording solution, Recordia.
Recordia as a cloud alternative for Oracle ISR call recording
Recordia is a SaaS solution for call recording and conversational intelligence in the cloud that captures information from different communication channels and stores it for the years required for regulatory compliance. Optionally, and through intelligent analysis of the conversation, allows companies to have a comprehensive 360º view of all data.
Recordia brings great benefits:
It is a secure platform that has the most advanced security systems and best practices, such as ISO27001 and ISO9001, in addition to being certified in the Spanish National Security Scheme (ENS) at the highest level that allows it to provide service to the Public Sector entities.
It supports the SIPREC Protocol, used by Oracle SBC and also used by Oracle ISR.
Allows you to import all the recordings you have in Oracle ISR and thus avoid paying for maintenance on a system that will no longer be used.
You can use Recordia for compliance along with other communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco, Avaya, cell phone recording, and more.
Recordia integrates easily and frictionlessly with Salesforce or MS Dynamics, allowing you to have recorded and classified conversations in your CRM.
It is a Cloud service, with no need to provide servers, databases, or technical elements.
No installation is required, simply redirect the SBC SIPREC protocol to our Recordia cloud. Also, if your internet connection is not reliable, we offer other redundancy and high availability options.
It can transcribe 100% of conversations quickly and easily.
Recordia integrates seamlessly with your API set, allowing it to connect to your applications.
Get a quick and easy migration to Recordia from Oracle ISR
By following a few simple steps, you can migrate from Oracle ISR to Recordia, without hassle or installation.
Create a Recordia account by contacting sales.
Export the recordings to a directory and connect to Recordia Uploader. All your recordings will be ingested into Recordia.
Point your SBC with the SIPREC protocol to the Recordia cloud.
Start recording. With Recordia you will be able to access through any browser to all your recordings, both old and new.
Turn off your old recorder.
It’s that easy to migrate your Oracle ISR service to Recordia. Want to learn more about Recordia?
Talk to an expert
Fill out the following form to receive information about Recordia, plans and prices.
All customers coming from an Oracle ISR get 12 months of free subscription fees (*)
(*) Unlimited number of endpoints or phones. 30 days retention period
Banks are required to comply with many different regulations. Ensuring full compliance with regulations, acting ethically, and conveying this transparency to their customers is essential for the banking industry. But not only because this is a way to gain a competitive advantage, but also because the failure of these aspects means the disappearance of the company (either because of its reputational damage or because of the costly fines it will have to face), especially for those in highly regulated sectors such as the financial sector.
In 2021, according to AEPD, the sectors most sanctioned for data protection breaches were banking and telecommunications.
Financial institutions worldwide were fined $10.6 billion for regulatory non-compliance, including Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) practices in 2020.
Payment fraud (59.6%) and data security (54.6%) are among leading friction points for cross-border payments.
The evolution and growth of regulatory demands, technological advances, and changing communications trends over the last decade have brought new challenges to the market and forced the banking industry to adapt to this constantly evolving landscape.
Of all the requirements imposed by international regulations that apply to the banking sector, call recording is the most repeated and therefore occupies a prominent place in the day-to-day life of highly regulated sectors such as the financial sector.
3 International regulations to be considered in the banking industry
The fact that there are numerous international regulations governing customer data protection can be confusing for banks, but it doesn’t have to be. Of all the international regulations on the market today, GDPR, MiFID II, and PCI DSS have the greatest impact on the banking and financial sector.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
RGPD is the privacy and security law, drafted and approved by the European Union, which regulates the processing by individuals, companies, or organizations of personal data relating to EU citizens. To comply with RGPD, the banking sector must consider several rules including consent, of which it must keep a record, and this must be obtained explicitly, only after informing the caller of the reason.
Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II)
MiFID II is the European directive that increases transparency in the European Union’s financial markets. It seeks to reinforce investor protection and transparency, introduce a common regulatory framework to unify financial services in the EU, and regulate the behavior of financial institutions. It establishes a series of requirements, among them, the call recording, retention of records for 5 years, or restriction of access to these recordings.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
PCI DSS is a set of strict standards created to protect private financial information and prevent credit card fraud. Among the requirements that financial institutions must comply with are the encryption of all communications involving credit card holder data and the implementation of access control and information security measures to ensure that this data remains secure and safe from fraud.
How can banks comply with the international regulations that apply to them?
To achieve compliance with the regulations that apply to the banking sector, call recording, conversational intelligence, and biometrics solutions are perfect for them.
1. Call recording and transcription:
As we say, call recording is a very important, and even essential, point in all the regulations that apply to the banking sector since it is a sector that handles very sensitive information. It is, therefore, necessary to have call recording and transcription solutions that allow recording and custody of these recordings of interactions and personal and sensitive data, such as those referring to credit cards, in a secure and robust manner, ensuring data protection and privacy.
2. Conversational intelligence:
Regulatory compliance is essential in the banking sector and Speech Analytics plays a key role in driving compliance processes. Conversational intelligence allows to automatically qualify and analyze 100% of the calls to the banking contact center, detecting those with compliance failures and reducing the risk of penalties and lawsuits related to non-compliance.
In addition, this conversational intelligence with Speech Analytics and Sentiment Analysis allows banks and financial institutions not only to detect non-compliance but also to extract data to improve sales and customer service processes, detect trends or improve products and services.
3. Voice Biometric Identification:
Following the digitization of banking, attacks such as identity theft and financial fraud or extortion were increased and as a prevention and security measure in the identification and authentication of customers emerged KYC or “Know Your Customer”.
Know Your Customer (KYC) rules require banks to verify the identity of customers before opening accounts or performing any transactions related to their finances, in addition to requiring banks to report suspicious activity to law enforcement agencies.
Thus, automated KYC technologies such as Voice Biometric Identification solutions have emerged with the aim of improving and streamlining customer identification and authentication processes. These solutions, such as Recordia Biometric Identification, help financial institutions ensure regulatory compliance in real-time, being able to manage data processing consents, and to improve customer satisfaction while avoiding fraud and identity theft, thanks to the fact that the voiceprint detected by the technology is unique for each person.
Complete recording, transcription, conversational intelligence, and biometric identification solutions like Recordia enable the banking industry to comply with all international data protection and privacy regulations, while reducing fraud, preventing identity theft, and improving processes and customer experience.
Find out more about our most complete solution, Recordia, by clicking here.
The evolution of fraud nowadays means that any user can be the target of them. If it is also, fraud linked to mobile devices, it is even more likely to happen to any of us.
In addition, it must be considered that, with the entry into force in 2019 of the PSD2 (Revised Payment Service Directive) and becoming mandatory the use of at least 2 different authentication factors (Knowledge factor, factor you possess, and inherence factor), most financial institutions have opted for the second of them as an additional verification method. In this case, they usually use an SMS message with a unique and temporary code called One Time Password (OTP).
It is in this SMS and in the OTP code, where the security breach lies and where a type of fraud called SIM Swapping is gaining more and more prominence in today’s cybercrime landscape.
But what is it all about and how is it affecting banking customers?
SIM Swapping is a type of fraud in which attackers falsify the documentation of the holder of a mobile line, with the aim of obtaining a duplicate or clone of their SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card associated with a telephone line. By duplicating the SIM card, they seek to impersonate the identity of the owner of the line and thus gain access to their bank accounts by sending SMS messages, which include the dynamic passwords that the bank provides to its customers as a second authentication factor.
This represents a major security breach in terms of SMS two-factor authentication.
Criminals use malware or social engineering techniques and impersonate official websites and applications that request the user’s credentials.
Once the victim enters his or her data, the attacker shows up at one of the operator’s stores or calls by phone, providing false documentation based on the customer’s personal data. It is very common for them, in turn, to file a false police report alleging that they have been victims of theft and attaching a photocopy of a modified ID card. In many cases, this is a very easy process as many operators do not apply enough rigorous security measures.
This is not a security failure of a device, but the lack of security mechanisms of the operators when making a duplicate SIM card.
As a last step, cybercriminals now have free access to your online banking account, so they can apply for credit, make online purchases, transfers, and, in many cases, acquire private information and sensitive content. All this is because they can now have the OTP (One Time Password) code at their disposal and thus successfully perform two-factor authentication by SMS thanks to the new SIM card.
What are the consequences of SIM Swapping for customers?
SIM Swapping has serious consequences for customers, including:
Bank fraud or money theft. This is the main and most serious consequence for operator customers. By cloning their SIM and being able to access the OTP keys sent by their bank for verification, cybercriminals can access their bank accounts, stealing large amounts of money. In addition, unfortunately, many banks do not return the full amount of the swindled money to the victim but only a percentage, which may be very reduced.
Impersonation for fraudulent practices. Due to all the information collected by the fraudster, they will be able to carry out different frauds in their own name.
Consequences for the user’s privacy. For instance, threats and bribes to the victim by compromising information and photos of the same in exchange for large amounts of money.
How can telecommunications companies avoid SIM Swapping?
Many large telecommunications operators have had to deal with costly fines due to the high number of complaints filed by customers who have suffered from this type of fraud.
The Spanish Data Protection Agency, in fact, has publicly concluded that operators have not efficiently protected the personal data of their users when it comes to checking the identity of the holder when issuing a duplicate SIM card. The SIM card is associated with a unique number that identifies its holder, which means that it is personal data that can only be provided to its owner.
Biometrics, the solution to fight SIM Swapping
Biometrics is the third authentication factor that PSD2 talks about, the inherence factor, i.e., something you are. Biometrics solutions are perfect to fight against SIM swapping, or rather, against the lack of security in the identity verification of customers requesting a duplicate SIM.
Many transactions are still carried out over the phone, which is why identity verification through the biometric voiceprint as the inherence factor, is ideal for ensuring that the person on the phone is who they say they are.
Discover your potential savings by implementing Voice Biometrics in your Contact Centerthanks to our ROI Calculator
The benefits for telecommunications companies, in addition to combating SIM Swapping, are:
Avoiding bank fraud and money theft, the main reason why cybercriminals perform SIM Swapping.
Reduce other types of fraud or identity theft.
Improve the company’s reputation, by guaranteeing data privacy and reducing the risk of these frauds.
Improve the customer experience of telecommunications companies.
Learn more about the benefits of voice biometrics solutions, such as Recordia, for telecommunications companies by clicking here.
