The Solution To An Age Old Phone Support Problem

One of the most frequent complaints about companies is their phone support. You probably have your own war story about trying to reach out to an Internet-based service, bank, or other organization by phone and being kept waiting in voice-prompt-hell. Or you might simply be annoyed by entering your verification info at the automated voice prompts; then, when you finally reach a live representative, you have to reiterate everything you entered. It’€™s not fun for you as the caller, and it’€™s costly to the organization providing the support.

Caller ID Can’€™t Be Fully Trusted

You may be thinking that it shouldn’€™t be hard for these organizations to identify the caller because they can look up caller ID -but caller ID can be spoofed with off-the-shelf software. So by itself, it’€™s not a sufficient identifier, especially for situations in which sensitive information is accessible on that call, such as your bank account or social security number.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter Faster and More Securely

The challenge to the organization offering phone support is that the caller doesn’€™t want to be interrogated; they want to get right to the subject about which they’re calling. But without adequate identification verification, both the caller and the organization are at risk. So traditionally, they ask you a lot of questions and make sure that your answers match the info in their databases.

That’€™s expensive, taking a lot of extra time for their operators – and it means that callers wait longer.

Alternative Third-Party Verification

There’€™s a company in Portland, Oregon who is doing something about the problem. TRUSTID has created a service that verifies who you are in the background by interrogating your phone and using advanced algorithms to determine whether the information from the phone is accurate.

TRUSTID changes the model, by providing a third party verification service. As soon as your call comes into the call center, some non-spoofable information is read from your phone, and verified by TRUSTID using proprietary methods (The founder of TRUSTID, Patrick Cox, holds 25 telecommunications patents). Then, if you pass, TRUSTID tells the organization it’s okay to offer you support. If not, you’re passed off for additional verification.

Paying Back Handsomely for Both Support Team and Callers

The result is that you’€™re not entering information repeatedly and your issue can be handled more promptly. It also frees up the people who need to give phone support – meaning a cost savings for the organization and shorter waits for the others who have dialed in for phone support. According to TRUSTID, it shaves $.50 cents off the cost of every call, and reduces overall call center costs by 20%.

A More Secure Connected World

This is welcome news in a connected world where we too often hear about data breaches, mass credit card thefts, ID thefts, and security holes. Having a methodology to decrease the security risks while enhancing customer support is a great big step in the right direction.