Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021.  Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Enhancing Fraud Prevention & Enabling Compliance by Design – How Automation Can Help Fill the Gap to Enhance the Customer Experience

By Yohay Etsion, Head of the Multi-Channel Recording Product Line at NICE

Every year organizations are faced with increasing challenges as fraudsters become even more sophisticated. The impact of failure to protect customers costs companies billions annually and worse still causes loss of reputation and customer trust. Crises create a fertile ground for fraudsters and fraudulent activity will likely only increase. Even in highly regulated industries such as banking, fraudsters are taking advantage of global crises for financial gain. This is an ongoing problem with increasingly high stakes and losses at play for organizations across sectors. A large part of combatting fraud is addressing gaps in an intelligent fraud-prevention and data privacy strategy. Many organizations are integrating digital transformation initiatives to alleviate pressures and improve the customer experience through automation and automating fraud prevention and data privacy cannot be overlooked.

Companies for whom protecting customers is a priority must contemplate the following two strategies based on automation, which also unlock a better customer experience, trust and mitigate fraud losses in 2021:

It will be more important than ever for organizations to take a proactive approach to combating fraud – especially in the contact center where fraudster attempts are frequent and potentially detrimental to customer success and loyalty in the event of a breach or account takeover. While organizations may have tools in place to authenticate consumers and even block known fraudsters, how can organizations combat fraudsters they don’t know or haven’t encountered yet? In 2021, organizations will need to adopt artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solutions and strategies that can be applied to millions of calls to detect abnormal or risky behavior – heading these fraudsters off at the start and identifying them before they can cause any damage to a consumer or brand.

Agility and “compliance by design” will be the key to meeting consumer privacy demands

Data privacy is becoming a huge differentiator for organizations, and any missteps in handling consumer data can be painful – both financially and reputationally. As consumer awareness into privacy regulations and their rights around these regulations increase, organizations will have more urgency in impacting brand loyalty – pointing consumers towards brands they can trust and that are transparent with how they use their data. In 2021, the most successful organizations will prioritize “compliance by design”. This means having the appropriate technology in place driven by analytics and automation that is agile enough to keep their organization up to speed with ongoing changes in regulations to preserve consumer privacy and data access needs. By empowering employees with these capabilities, organizations will stand out as customer experience and satisfaction ultimately increase.

In 2021, it will be more important than ever for organizations to invest in technologies that protect customer data from being exposed while simultaneously improving operational efficiencies and reducing loss due to fraud. Consumer privacy and protection of fragile, yet very important, data will emerge as a competitive differentiator and the businesses that look to automation will be in the winner’s circle when it comes to achieving a holistic customer experience. Moreover, this will allow businesses to reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities and safeguard brand loyalty – an invaluable asset in such turbulent, uncharted times.

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About the Author

With 15 years’ experience leading products in diverse positions at NICE, Yohay Etsion is a recognized expert in the complex arena of Contact Center Recording. In his current role as the Head of the Multi-Channel Recording Product Line at NICE, Yohay has across the board responsibility for NICE’s contact center recording business, defining and executing business, product and marketing strategy, driving true value to customers.  Previously, Yohay was the Head of Product Management in the Multi-Channel Recording and Authentication line of business at NICE. Yohay holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA.