CEAi Market Brief - Authentication

How does authentication impact customer experience and operational costs?

Enabling customers to perform appropriate activities via self service has been at the top of enterprise to-do lists for years. One critical and often overlooked piece of building effective self service is identifying the customer, commonly referred to as Authentication.

In order for customers to self serve in automated channels such as web sites or interactive phone systems, they must first validate who they are. No matter how efficient and convenient a self service function is, a customer who fails to authenticate will not be successful even reaching their desired function within a single contact channel.

Authentication success depends on two factors: offering the simplest, most seamless process for the customer and a company’s ability to match customer inputs to the correct customer account.