Veteran telecom professionals know that toll fraud has been a problem for decades. Scammers would try to penetrate the PBX to make expensive overseas calls at the organization’s expense, or find ways to bill another entity for their hours-long conversations. While online voice and messaging applications and cloud-based platforms have transformed the long-distance sector, fraud continues to be one of the challenges facing IT professionals managing toll-free services.
“Toll fraud protection continues to be a big challenge, and AI is already changing the threat landscape,” said Irwin Lazar, president and principal analyst, Metrigy at a recent Enterprise Connect webinar, “Futureproofing Your Toll-Free,” moderated by Eric Krapf, general manager, and sponsored by Bandwidth.
Toll fraud increasing, reaching $38.95 billion in 2023 up 12 percent from 2021, according to Lazar. Criminals may try to route outbound calls to expensive carriers or penetrate enterprise phone systems to initiate calls or exfiltrate data, he added.
“Now there are phishing attacks, trying to get an agent to allow a password reset,” Lazar said. “So, you need to look at where those calls are originating for authentication and if it is coming from a questionable region, you can block or divert those callers.”
While nearly 58 percent of enterprises are investing in toll-fraud protection, only about 30 percent have a security system in place today, Lazar said, citing three factors for success:
• Take a proactive approach. Only 37 percent of enterprises have a communications and collaboration security strategy.
• Align responsibilities. Bring security leaders together with the teams responsible for CX voice platforms and applications.
• Prepare for the future. There will be increasing threats from customer impersonation, AI deep fakes, phishing and social engineering attacks
“You have to understand the risk of inaction – reputational harm, financial loss or customer impact,” Lazar said. “So, this needs to be a high-level discussion regarding best in class protection for those services.”
Other toll-free challenges
For enterprises, the cost of toll-free numbers still a big issue, as well as the quality and reliability of calls, said David Simmons, voice solutions engineer, Bandwidth. “Toll-free is absolutely relevant, as voice is the largest component of the omni channel today,” he said. “When customers can’t solve a problem, they want to talk to someone. There is simply no substitute for live person-to-person conversations, especially when you have to explain something.”
The toll-free environment is changing, however, driven by CX investments, the value of brand recognition, the high volume of text messages and the work-from-home trend. For instance, toll-free numbers can include texts as well as calls, and allow employees to dial in from distant remote locations.
“Toll-free numbers allow customers and sales prospects to make reliable calls to your organization, while minimizing costs and ensuring safety,” Lazar said. “And voice has the highest resolution rate, while self-service is at the bottom of the list.”
As a result, many enterprises are looking at how to expand their 8XX toll-free numbers and to support messaging or short codes, Lazar said. “There is a lot of interest in taking that legacy dial-in ability and making it more interactive so you don’t lose customers in a queue. That is one of the areas of focus for the toll-free market this year.”
The Verint Open Platform provides a team of AI-powered bots to augment human staff across the enterprise, including contact centers, web/mobile channels, branches, back offices, CX offices, and more. The result? Organizations can create capacity, lower costs, and continually improve CX.
IAUG offers Avaya support, education, and community. Interested in contributing to a blog? Learn more here.