Safaricom Is Changing Our Call Centre Experience, With Voice ID Service, “Jitambulishe”
Have you called a call centre recently? The most annoying part of all call centre calls is usually the authentication process, where they try to figure out if it is really you on the phone, or it is a fraudster. In my experience, most call centres will ask for my phone number (I always wonder why they haven’t embraced caller ID), my ID number, email address, full names (Including my little-used “M-Pesa name”), and so on and so forth. It is no fun at all.
It is therefore interesting to see Safaricom has introduced Voice Biometrics for its call centre, an initiative dubbed “Jitambulishe”, a first in Kenya. Yes, they are doing it to make the experience better for the customer, but more importantly, for increased security. As we saw on Twitter last year (click on the tweet below to see the thread), using the information you share with your service providers publicly, a total stranger can authenticate your account and possibly get your personal information. Voice biometrics prevents this from happening.
A thread about my experiment.. Zuku and Data protection.. cc @ZukuOfficial
— the weather man (@ProverbialKiki) January 17, 2018
How Voice Biometrics works
Voice biometrics works by retrieving three aspects of one’s speech. First is ‘What you are saying’, which is retrieved using automatic speech recognition technology. Second is ‘How you speak’, which involves language, accent and speaking style.
Voice biometrics technology recognizes you by your voice, giving you a personalised service right from the start, and eliminating the need to use PINs, passwords and security questions to log into your account at the call centre, on mobile devices and on the web.
How to record your voice print
Call 100/200 on your Safaricom line, right after selecting your language of choice, press 1 for the Jitambulishe service. Once you have recorded your voice print, it becomes a form of ID, and is linked to all your account services. This means that when you next need assistance, your voice will be matched against the recorded voice print, unlocking whatever service you need e.g SIM swapping, unlocking your M-Pesa PIN, and PUK requests.
Can one mimic your voice and access your account?
I mean, some people are really good at mimicking others, and I was curious as to whether this would present a problem for voice biometrics. According to Dr Luke Wandanje, this is impossible to do because while someone can mimic you, they cannot copy your vocal tract patterns.
“When one is born, just like with the finger prints or iris, which are never same across individuals, the voice tract also remains same and particular to an individual. When I speak in my native language, or English, I alter my intonation or pitch, but if I have my voice captured on a biometrics tool, I won’t fool it, because the waves of the vocal tract when speaking cannot be changed”
As I mentioned in the discussion about Safaricom’s results, digital innovation is the next frontier and it is great to see that the company is innovating, not just to grow revenues, but to improve overall customer experience.
