Global Bilgi, a subsidiary of wireless carrier Turkcell, announced that it is experiencing the “fastest growth rates in voice signature application users in one year” than any of its peers in the telecommunications industry. Until now, BellCanada had been the benchmark in voice authentication and it was able to enroll 2.2 million subscribers in its first three years of operations (with 500,000 between March 2007 and December 2007).

It makes sense that Turkcell is enjoying unprecedented success with voice biometric authentiication. Turkcell has over 33 million wireless subscribers in a country with a population of nearly 72 million, compared to Bell Mobility’s 7 million mobile subscribers (in a country with a population of 34 million. There’s an “apples to oranges” phenomenon taking place, given that Bell Canada (Bell Mobility’s parent company) has been offering its Voice Identification Service (VIS) to customers who have taken one or more of its “Quadruple Play” options: residential phone, wireless, Cable TV and Internet services.

Global Bilgi, by contrast, is a fully owned subsidiary that is operates a network of 12 customer care contact centers with 5,500 “seats.” It employs over 7,500 people and provides its “value added services” to more than 50 million people in Turkey and another 10 million in Ukraine. Its decision to incorporate “voice signatures” into the flow of customer care may well prove to be a watershed moment for the cause of voice biometric-based authentication. It demonstrates how the the technology supports secure, safe and expeditious customers care.

As explained in this press release, using “voice signatures” to authenticate callers reduces “the communication period by 20 seconds for individual subscribers and 40 seconds for corporate subscribers.” In high-volume contact centers, this sort of reduction in agent work time and call duration leads to very short payback periods (as little as 5 months) and very impressive ROIs. Just as important, these savings are accomplished while delivering higher levels of customer satisfaction and a sense of higher security.

Global Bilgi is deploying technology provided by Nuance Communications, built on PerSay’s VocalPassword. It has demonstrated efficacy, usability and the ability to scale in response to the growth in customer demand. On March 1, Nuance’s Chuck Buffum and I will delve a little deeper into the Global Bilgi implementation in this Webcast. A representative of the company will also provide insights, based on experience, at the Voice Biometrics Conference-Amsterdam (VBC-Amsterdam), March 23-24.

With companies like Bell Canada, Turkcell/Global Bilgi, National Australia Bank, Citibank (Australia) and a number of mobile initiatives underway, the growth potential of the voice biometrics-based authentication is palpable.

Categories: Articles

Tags: mobile services, Voice biometrics, Nuance, Contact Center, Turkcell