Voice Biometrics Facilitates Automated Password Resets

At last week’s Voice Biometrics Conference, Mike Matthews, UK Service Desk Product Manager at Atos Origin (IT services company), presented a compelling case study on the use of voice biometrics to automate password resets.

Mike started off by listing some examples of password reset “pain” compiled from Atos Origin clients:
• Up to 25% of all contacts to the help desk
• Up to 15 minutes to reset a password
• Up to $22.50 per contact
• Post weekend and holiday spike in contacts
• Support unavailable outside of normal office hours

He then proceeded to describe a fully-automated approach to password resets, using voice biometrics to verify the user’s identity, and identified the benefits. Using an automated approach…

• Resetting a password takes, on average, 1 minute
• The need for human intervention to complete low level tasks is reduced, significantly lowering overhead
• Password resets are not affected by heavy call volumes and, therefore, spikes in contacts become a thing of the past
• Password reset is available 24/7 365 from anywhere in the world, using any type of phone

Mike concluded with the following ROI example:

Company performs approximately 115,000 password resets per year:
• Currently costs $12 per call, or $1,380,000 per year
• Lost productivity, using an average of 7 minutes per call, amounts to 13,500 hours

Using an automated password reset (with voice biometrics) approach, the cost per contact is reduced to $7.50 per call, or $862,500 per year:
• $517,500 savings per year
• Help desk downtime reduced to approximately 2000 hours (i.e., reduction of 11,500 hours per year)

Why are Help Desk Agents Still Resetting Passwords?

I’ve seen estimates that 40%+ of help desk transactions are password reset related. Voice biometrics can enable users to reset their own passwords without help desk intervention. Automated self-service password reset applications provide significant benefits to the IT organization, including:

1) Reduces costs – no need for live agent
2) Improves service – available 24/7, never a wait for a live agent and faster service
3) Increases security – voice biometrics is more secure than challenge questions to verify a user’s identity questions

Automated password resets is a relatively simple process. The user calls the help desk IVR, selects the password reset option, enters one factor of authentication (e.g., account number) and validates their identity by providing a voiceprint sample. Once the user's identity is verified, the system generates a new password and either emails or speaks it over the phone.