LumenVox Featured by CrmXchange for CCW

Recently the LumenVox team attended CCW to empower businesses to deliver seamless yet secure customer communication through advanced speech and authentication solutions. While there, we had the opportunity to have been interviewed by CrmXchange for their CCW Nashville 2020 column: Solution Providers and End Users Harmonize in Music City 

Read our interview below, or download the eBook version here.

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What are the key areas of focus for LumenVox?

Good question. We have zeroed in on the following:

Speech Recognition: This includes conversational IVR with text-to-speech capabilities that create a very functional, conversational IVR self-service.

Voice Biometrics: We get really excited about this, as it addresses a huge threat to businesses right now—fraud. Voice biometrics is used to keep customers safe, to secure authentication and keep the customer experience painless and easy. Businesses can implement voice biometrics using IVR, mobile applications or in the contact center.

In 2019 we hit over a million voiceprints. For 2020, our development team combined customer feedback with their biometric expertise and created a robust passive engine, which allows for machine learning to enhance features and customer benefits. With the inclusion of Deep Neural Network technology, LumenVox has positioned itself to provide higher accuracy, more fraud prevention tools and increased customer satisfaction/ service.

There are numerous companies in your space…how do your solutions stand out from your competitors?

We’re easier to work with in every way. Our company is very focused on our channel partners. And our customers rave about how flexible the architecture and capabilities are. Our consistently high NPS scores (currently 89) reflect how much they appreciate our responsiveness. All speech recognizers and text-to-speech engines perform the same tasks, but they really don’t offer the higher value that comes from our simple install-configure-use approach. Things like our built-in diagnostics make it quick and easy to set up or troubleshoot things, and the LumenVox Speech Tuner is the easiest product on the market to implement and improve the performance of your speech applications, based on real customer usage.

On the voice biometrics side, while we do the installation and training, we’re also very open and flexible: We have APIs that are easily integrated into a contact center agent’s desktop or CRM applications. We see this as an important differentiator because managers really want applications consolidated. So the capability to take our biometrics results and integrate that information smoothly makes it easier for everyone.

From an implementation services standpoint, we don’t lock our customers into having to use our professional services. We enable both our partners and IVR developers to work from various platforms, using their own services while deploying our speech recognition technology. Our holistic approach results in us being more competitive, or and cost-effective. We don’t think cutting-edge technology needs to come at a premium price. We want this technology to be available to everyone.

Can you define how biometrics work in the contact center?

All biometrics measure something you’re made of. We’re used to smartphones using fingerprints and facial recognition/ faceprints to authenticate us now. Makes you feel more secure, right? The call center is evolving, too, and with our technology can create the same level of protection using the human voice. An enterprise contact center obtains a sample of your voice and converts it into a secure file called a voiceprint. Once there’s a voiceprint on file, the next time you call into the center, you don’t have to answer those painful security questions (which, by the way, are often vulnerable to theft). Using a voiceprint means that as a consumer you have a better calling experience. And as a business, you get more security.

Is it possible to fraudulently manipulate a voice biometric? Can someone pick up a customer’s voice pattern or convincingly imitate them?

Well, even mothers can be fooled by twins. We don’t want to be so hubristic as to claim that we somehow have something over Mother Nature. But voice biometrics takes major precautions: We use multiple factors when creating the voiceprint. The human ear might not be able to detect an impersonator, but our solution will notice hundreds of subtle differences. A company can also use multiple phrases as an identifier or ask varying questions to prevent a breach.

The truth is customers understand that the threat is real and want an added layer of unique security. A recent study noted that 74% of Americans believe that biometrics is a more secure method of verifying accounts than traditional PINs and passwords. Hacks and data breaches are commonplace occurrences now. And there are long, long gaps in notification—customers may not know they were exposed for nine months sometimes. Since many people tend to use the same PINs and passwords for multiple accounts, they are vulnerable. Voice biometrics protects and defends privacy. It’s that simple.

In what industries are recognition technologies becoming prevalent?

Any and all, as the desire for a seamless customer-agent interaction increases. People want to reach a customer representative to solve the bigger, more complex problems and spend their valuable time self-servicing/ solving the easier ones on their own. We’re working more and more with financial institutions and healthcare providers, as we have the capabilities to not only enhance their IVR experience, but also provide stronger security. As businesses grow, we see these two factors go hand-in-hand. People want security, but they don’t want to compromise speed and efficiency to get it. Our —speech solutions provide the best of both worlds.

What are some of the tangible benefits of Natural Language Processing IVR applications?

NLU gives self-service that human touch that people really seek in the customer journey. It’s the best of all worlds: Customers can help themselves quickly, but can also feel as if they’re doing it effortlessly–with a fellow human mind at the helm. As for LumenVox, our new Conversational ASR combines 20 years of experience in Speech Recognition with the latest in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, allowing any business to build new AI-based IVR applications that support natural language processing and intent determination from an existing voice application platform (IVR). The best part is that as a business you really don’t have to start from scratch to do this. Text-based AI tools can be given a voice with LumenVox ASR. You can leverage your existing infrastructure and preferred tools to provide rich, voice based self-service that exceeds expectations.

Questions about our solutions? Contact us today!