Omnichannel Verification: The Future Of Online Authentication

The omnichannel principle refers to a user’s seamless experience across different platforms, channels and devices.

Whether a user chooses to interact with your company through their tablet, their phone, a browser or an app, the experience should ideally be characterised by continuity.

Here are some interesting stats regarding the impact of the omnichannel principle in business:

The purchase rate of campaigns using three or more channels during a campaign is 287% higher than those using a single channel. (Omnisend)
Omnichannel strategies drive an 80% higher rate of incremental store visits. (Google)
9 out of 10 consumers want an omnichannel experience with seamless service between communication methods. (UC Today)

Omnichannel commerce and user experience are a real thing. They already have a big impact but what’s even more impressive, is their potential going forward.

This is not something businesses can overlook or look the other way from. It’s not a trend but a reality and sooner or later, any business that wants to stay competitive will embrace the omnichannel principle.

Omnichannel Verification: A Unique Challenge

What’s the challenge of omnichannel customer verification? The countless touchpoints between business and customer.

Whilst offering the customer the opportunity to interact with the company and seamlessly switch between platforms during their user journey, that’s a security and logistical nightmare in the backend.

Just pay some attention to the different point of interaction between business and customer and try to imagine the considerations regarding platforms, devices and channels:

Web
Mobile
In-store
Over-the-phone
ATMs
Chatbots
Digital assistants (Siri, Alexa)
Social media

How can you automate this matrix?

Goodbye Passwords, Hello Biometrics

Passwords have never been the optimal way of verifying user identity. It was more of a means to an end and everyone involved in tech and business it wouldn’t be long before the new frontier of identity verification will arrive and it seems like it has.

In one of our recent articles, we identified the “Top 3 Digital ID Trends Heading Into 2021” and biometrics were one of the three trends to make the list. Why? Because they offer an elevated security product and a more user-friendly experience.

What we can now add to the list of biometrics advantages is their technical malleability and modality. They are adaptable pieces of technology that make them ideal to plug into a comprehensive, omnichannel presence.

The industry findings on the state of omnichannel fraud and the potential impact of biometrics are staggering.

In a recent study by Forrester titled “Navigating The Omnichannel Fraud And Authentication Landscape”, results show that a business employing an omnichannel strategy is more vulnerable to online fraud and attacks.

Let’s look at some numbers:

82% of firms agree that authentication across channels is increasingly critical to fraud prevention.
84% say their ability to prevent fraud on any one channel is nearly or fully optimized, showing a worrying overconfidence.
45% of firms experienced a 4% or greater increase in the rate of fraud on their mobile applications and websites in the past 24 months.

Whilst legacy identification methods like passwords and personally identifiable information still rank at the top of the list when it comes ro preferred identification methods, it’s encouraging to see that biometrics are not far behind:

73% fingerprint biometric authentication
73% behavioral biometric authentication
66% voice biometric authentication
64% face biometric authentication

Biometrics are a natural fit for omnichannel authentication. It’s not a matter of if businesses should use them, but a question of how.

Biometrics are separated into two categories: server-based and device-based.

The differences between the two are probably the subject of a different blog post but we if you really want to dig deeper, have a look at this white paper by Aware, titled “Mobile biometric authentication: Device-centric vs. server-centric architecture.”

Recap

The bad news is that omnichannel verification is a beast of a challenge for any business. The good news is that not only is there a solution, there are companies that have taken it upon themselves to develop and perfect it.

Identomat’s proprietary technology was built to facilitate an omnichannel presence, ensuring that customer onboarding and the overall customer experience are smooth, intuitive and seamless.

Have a chat with our team and tap into their experience regarding this very technical and sensitive issue. Remember that managing to set up a robust omnichannel verification process will help your business with: