Balancing Fraud Prevention and Customer Experience

We sat down with Bala Kumar, CPO of Jumio, to discuss balancing the customer and fraud prevention.

1) Data shows that 80% of customers feel the experience a company offers is as important as its products and services. Why has this become the case in the last decade?

In today’s digital world, customer experience (CX) is more important for brands than ever before because it shapes the way customers view your business. Over the last decade, CX has become a critical business priority, driving growth and revenue at companies across the world. CX touchpoints have the power to build customer loyalty or make consumers seek out competing products or services to find a better experience. Especially during the COVID-19 shutdowns, digital CX was all companies could rely on to drive traffic since brick-and-mortar operations were all closed.

2) What are some examples of common pitfalls that brands face when it comes to achieving better CX, while also thwarting fraudsters?

While security is critical in today’s digital world, it’s common for brands to add too many different security steps for customers to log in to their accounts in order to make a purchase. As you can imagine, this can cause the customer to get frustrated and abandon their cart. On the flip side, if an app or website doesn’t have secure enough identity verification processes, customers will be concerned their personal data isn’t safe and avoid making purchases or other transactions with that business. It’s critical to find a balance where the business delivers a smooth experience and the customer also feels protected.

3) Why do tighter security measures tend to negatively impact customer experience (CX)?

Historically, when more friction is added to the account login process, it becomes more secure because of the additional steps verifying the user before they can access an app or web service. Each different step — entering your PIN, answering security questions — could prevent a fraudster from gaining access to your account, but for you, it’s just another hoop to jump through that takes more of your valuable time. Today, each consumer has so many various passwords to remember for each app or service, we end up wasting a significant amount of time resetting our passwords every time we forget one, which negatively impacts CX.

4) Tell us about the role of modern identity verification technology, such as biometric authentication, for mitigating fraudulent transactions.

When companies adopt biometric authentication (such as facial or fingerprint recognition) to replace traditional passwords, knowledge-based authentication and SMS-based two-factor authentication, they can authenticate users without adding even more verification steps. With biometrics in place, it's much more difficult for fraudsters to impersonate real customers. For the user, biometric authentication is as simple as taking a selfie. Advanced face recognition and selfie technology quickly and securely authenticates users and unlocks their digital identities in real time while certified liveness detection protects against spoofing and deepfake attempts.

5) What advice do you have for companies trying to find the balance between strong fraud prevention and providing customers with a frictionless experience?

If your organization can leverage biometrics and authenticate customer government-issued IDs in real-time for all transactions, it's possible to achieve both tight security and a better overall CX. This can be done with the identity verification technology mentioned above to confirm the user is who they say they are. With that said, fraud is always evolving, and fraudsters are constantly refining their techniques to spoof advanced digital identity verification solutions. That’s why it’s so critical to invest in advanced ID verification technology, ensure all AI models are constantly being improved and involve human experts where necessary to effectively detect ID manipulations.

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