Case StudyCustomer Service Solutions
Barclays implementation
of voice biometrics
Barclays improves
their customer
experience.
Voice biometrics makes authentication
painless; reduces average call time by 15%.
Background
Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
(W&IM) is a leading global wealth manager, the
UK’s largest and amongst the top 10 globally. With
ofces in over 20 countries, it focuses on private
and intermediary clients, providing international
and private banking, investment management,
advisory and duciary services and brokerage.
Challenge
– Improve telephony security
service
– Improve customer advocacy
and satisfaction
– Reduce the average call time
– Improve employee
engagement scores
– Improve risk prole
Solution
– Nuance FreeSpeech – voice
biometrics solution
– Customer’s identity
determined during course of
natural conversation
– Verication completed
in seconds without call
interuption
– Integrated with Barclays CRM
system
Results
– 15% reduction in average call
times
– 93% of clients scored at
least 9 out of 10 for its voice
authentication system
– 97% of Barclays clients
are now enrolled on the
FreeSpeech solution
– 90% reduction in complaints
regarding security service
“The use of Nuance’s voice biometric technology has been integral in our mission
to deliver an excellent customer experience. The customer and employee
satisfaction results speak for themselves. We’re looking forward to working with
Nuance in the future to use voice biometrics to authenticate even more processes.”
Anne Grim, Head of Global Client Experience,
Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
Case StudyCustomer Service Solutions
Barclays implementation
of voice biometrics
Barclays’s passion towards the delivery of world class
customer service and an outstanding client experience
has been a key motivator in the decision to implement
a passive voice biometrics solution for verication. As
a result Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
has become the rst organization to use this technology
globally to transform the client experience.
Challenge
Results from Barclays’ client satisfaction research
indicated that its clients wanted a better experience from
the telephone channel security processes, reducing the
time it takes to complete the authentication process for
them to be authenticated before their query can be dealt
with. Barclays’ client service center-based relationship
managers also voiced concerns about the process,
explaining they did not feel comfortable asking their
clients a comprehensive set of security questions when
they had already established a relationship. Historically,
clients could walk into a branch and be recognized by
the manager by name; a major experience requirement
for Barclays’ solution would be to deliver the same easy,
personalized service experience in the most controlled,
efcient and secure way possible.
On a broader scale, no single wealth manager has greater
than a 7% share of the global market. Increasing the
productive capacity of its relationship managers is critical
to Barclays’ ambitions to become one of the world’s top
ve wealth managers. This focus is especially important
when running an agent-only service center with no
telephony automation, in which case optimizing the agent
interaction is a major lever in scaling the business.
Solution
Barclays implemented FreeSpeech from Nuance
Communications, an innovative speaker verication
solution. The technology authenticates the caller while
ensuring the ow of the call is not interrupted.
During the opening seconds of any call with an agent,
Nuance’s FreeSpeech voice biometrics solution checks
a client’s voice against a voiceprint they previously
enrolled with Barclays, returning a verication result to
the agent and – assuming it is positive – the Barclays
“In our implementation of voice biometrics, we focused on the clients and carried
out some really valuable focus groups to understand the issues. We found that
between 7% and 10% of customers calling in were actually being rejected by the
security processes, prior to voice biometrics. We ran some client satisfaction
surveys after the implementation and clients rated the service at least 9 out of 10
in all cases, which translated into a customer advocacy rating of 60% – a
signicant uplift on our previous ratings.”
Iain Hanlon, Client Experience and Strategy,
Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
“Regardless of industry, standout customer service is going to be an important
differentiator. Customers have the choice of a variety of channels, mobile, online,
telephone and face-to-face, so technology like voice biometrics is critical to give
the sense that we know our clients at all touchpoints.”
Anne Grim, Head of Global Client Experience,
Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
Case StudyCustomer Service Solutions
Barclays implementation
of voice biometrics
CRM system loads the client’s account management
information instantaneously.
The experience benets of this solution are numerous.
The verication data is acquired passively in the
background, eliminating cumbersome authentication
questions. The process is also therefore completely
non-intrusive and is content-independent, which min-
imizes the effort on both the customer and agent. The
technology is also language- and accent-independent.
The closeness of a match to the stored voiceprint is
determined by subtly unique characteristics, such as
vocal tract length and shape, pitch and speaking rate
which contribute to more than one hundred evaluated
characteristics.
The authentication process is now more secure. By
its very nature, the speaker’s voiceprint is unique and
non-transferable, making the technique safer that any
password-based or “challenge question” process.
Business benets
The solution now enables Barclays to deliver the same
experience and enhanced relationship that customers
used to have with their bank when visiting in person.
Barclays’ aim is to have an agent answer each call and
deal with the client in real time. Being able to identify the
client in the background seamlessly using FreeSpeech
while the customer is speaking, makes the identica-
tion process easy for the agent and painless for the
customer.
Currently, over 57,000 Barclays’ customers have opted
for full enrollment in the system. Since the deployment
went live in August 2012, on average of 65% of calls
are now voice authenticated by the solution, allowing
customers much easier access to check their balance or
get updates on payments.
As its International Banking customers are automatically
veried as they speak with a service center agent,
“We chose Nuance for several reasons; rstly, they are the industry leaders and
were able to provide us with several examples of successful implementations. The
second benet was about the ease of integration. The third piece was around the
proof of concept that was delivered. This helped us to overcome some internal
scepticism and really gain the condence to move to a full deployment. And nally
the strength of the Nuance team – the service they promised and delivered has
been of high quality. I would denitely recommend Nuance FreeSpeech, it’s more
future-proof, more secure and it makes for a better experience for the client. It’s
really a win-win for everyone.”
Anne Grim, Head of Global Client Experience,
Barclays Wealth and Investment Management
“Over 65% of calls are now veried by voice biometrics and instead of having to
wait two to seven minutes to be veried, the opportunity is now there to have a
much better conversation with customers earlier in the experience. A big positive
result is that we’ve had a 90% reduction in complaints regarding our security
service since we’ve implemented voice biometrics.”
Paul Scales, Customer Services Supervisor,
Barclays
Case StudyCustomer Service Solutions
Barclays implementation
of voice biometrics
authentication time has been cut signicantly. In addi-
tion, the new approach enables agents and relationship
managers to focus on clients’ needs rather than the
mechanics of authentication.
Other benets, gained from post-call customer service
surveys, include:
– 71% of clients are more satised with voice
authentication compared to their previous security
process (22% are as satised)
– Barclays has had a 90% reduction in complaints
regarding their former security service since
implementation of voice biometrics
– Using the old security processes, between 7% to
10% of clients had been rejected after going through
security questioning
– 93% of clients scored at least 9 out of 10 for the speed,
ease-of-use and security of voice authentication. This
translates into a client advocacy rating of over 60%
– Barclays has enjoyed a 60% reduction in client
complaints and a 60% reduction in call handling times
– Barclays initially anticipated an 80% client uptake
in voice biometrics, in reality they have seen a 97%
uptake
– Over 65% of client calls are now authenticated using
voice biometrics
– The new ID&V process has seen colleague engagement
scores increase by 5% with over 92% of colleagues
providing feedback
– A reduction in complaints and vulnerability to fraud
– A 15% reduction in average call handling time. Call
center agents can authenticate the voice within 20
seconds which frees up capacity in their global service
centers
– The old authentication process could take between
2 and 7 minutes—voice biometrics has reduced this
service to 20 seconds
– Clients call the service centers far more frequently
because of the improved service, freeing up bankers
and relationship managers to focus on revenue
generation
Since the deployment in late 2012, the solution has
been selected by numerous industry experts for various
awards including:
– FS Tech Awards 2013 – Best Use of Technology in
Customer Service
– The Banker 2013 – Wealth Management Technology
Project of the Year – for Voice Biometrics
– European Call Center & Customer Service Awards
2013 – Best Application of Technology – Voice
Biometrics
– Banking Technology Awards 2013 – Best Security
Initiative – Voice Biometrics
About Nuance Voice Biometrics
Nuance is the global leader in voice biometric solutions,
with over 40 million enrolled voiceprints and a global
customer base that spans all major industries. Over
the past 12 years, Nuance has developed unrivaled
experience in delivering successful voice biometric
solutions that enable organizations to improve customer
satisfaction, reduce costs and improve security.
Copyright © 2014 Nuance Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Nuance, and the Nuance logo, are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks, of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its afliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other
brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
NUAN–CS–2354–01–CS, June 3 2014
About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications is reinventing the relationship between people and technology. Through its voice and
language offerings, the company is creating a more human conversation with the many systems, devices, electronics,
apps and services around us. Every day, millions of people and thousands of businesses experience Nuance through
intelligent systems that can listen, understand, learn and adapt to your life and your work. For more information, please
visitnuance.com.
