What Readers Are Saying
A must read for anyone in the contact center industry!
VP Security - CanadaInsightful, well written, and full of actionable advice, Matt Smallman's book is a must read for anyone in the contact center industry. The book charts a path to transition a contact center from inefficient and insecure security methods to a modern approach that improves the customer experience while blocking fraudsters. I've learned a lot from reading 'Unlock Your Call Centre' and I've been in the industry for 20 years!.
Brilliant roadmap to improve contact centre operations
Marketing Director - UKA wonderful book that provides an approachable introduction for anyone new to the contact centre security space. Smallman’s tools and diagrams provide a valuable resource for anyone who is looking for an unbiased reference and a roadmap about how to improve contact centre operations.
Practical, real-world approaches to contact center security and authentication
Research Director - SF Bay AreaA remarkable book that presents clear solutions to the challenges companies face when authenticating customers. Contact center security methods are often mundane and frustrating for customers. This book provides history and context in the evolution of customer service authentication and how usability and efficiency are often at odds with security and fraud prevention.
Smallman's years of real-world contact center management is clearly displayed in tips for developing visualization tools for understanding performance and processes, and practical advice for building the business case. This well-organized and highly readable book is a primer for any organisation looking to maximize the business benefits of customer-focused authentication and modern security methods.
Who Is It For?
Call Centre Leaders
Are you frustrated by how much time your agents spend on the security process and how fraudsters still get through while your customers can't?
Customer Experience Professionals
Is the security process hurting your customer experience, preventing agents from building relationships and really listening to your customers?
Fraud and Risk Specialists
Do fraudsters compromise your call-centre security processes with ease? Are you looking for a way to stop them?
Technologists
Do you understand how to implement modern technologies that can dramatically improve your call centre's security process?
What Will You Learn?
Understand the opportunity
Unique tools to assess and visualise your current security processes performance.
Plan with ease
Step-by-step guide to choosing the most appropriate modern security methods for your unique context.
Make a compelling case
Easy to follow rational and emotional case for change with top tips to help convince your stakeholders.
Accelerate Design
Tried and tested best practice processes to use as a template.
Implement with confidence
Crawl-walk-run implementation plan that will help you launch quickly and safely.
Deliver results
Proven value-chain methodology to track, sustain and improve performance.
Who Is The Author?
Matt Smallman led call centre, strategy and change teams at two of the UK's largest retail banks, seeing first-hand the impact of traditional security processes on every dimension of call-centre performance. In 2012 he designed and led the award-winning implementation of Voice Biometrics for the UK's largest wealth manager. For the first time, customers were able to access their accounts, authenticated only by their voice as they talked to an agent. Customer's, agent's and the bank's bottom line loved the results.
Five years later, frustrated that so many customers were still receiving poor security experiences, he founded SymNex Consulting to help organisations bridge the gap between the potential of modern security and the realities of their call centres. At SymNex, he has led the design and implementation of modern security processes for several of the most customer-centric brands in North America and Europe. Today, tens of millions of their customers receive quicker, easier and more secure call centre experiences as a result. He has been featured by the BBC, FT, and Wall Street Journal.

What Does the Author Say?
What Do Your Peers Think?
A Much Needed Primer on Practical Security Measures for Customer Care Contact Centers
Industry Veteran - New YorkMatt Smallman provides an easy-to-understand description of the sorts of modern authentication techniques that every company should be deploying. Every one of us - meaning us poor souls who have been asked by our cable company, bank, insurance company or healthcare provider to remember a password, PIN or answer to a questions we may have provided years go - has been annoyed by the time and effort it takes to get to the actual purpose of the call.
The author is very systematic in his approach to dissecting the problems that companies have created for themselves and their customers. Then he describes, in detail, the alternatives to today's approaches and describes the steps companies should take to put them into practice. He takes an approach that takes into account both customer experience considerations and security requirements. Using his guidelines, businesses of all sizes and across many verticals will be able to implement technological solutions that promote speedy and strong authentication.
An essential guide for anyone looking to better understand and improve their Contact Centre
Contact Centre Program Manager - Big 4 Bank UKAn excellent book and provides an incredibly valuable set of tools and thought processes.
The author’s experience and clarity of thought really shines through as he explains some really complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. I have personally found the way the book presents and analyses these concepts really helpful when managing stakeholders. The summary sections and case studies have also really helped to embed my understanding.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve the customer outcomes, security and efficiency of their contact centre operations.
A must-read for anyone who cares about call center security.
CEO - SwitzerlandUnlock Your Call Centre is a must-read for anyone involved with call center management, telephone technology, or risk compliance. Until you read this book, you won’t know what you don’t know (and I’m not talking about all those forgotten PINs and passwords). Matt’s book is an easy-to-read, comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing modern call center security that everyone should keep handy.
Clear, concise, critical context and roadmap for your business
Program Manager - Pacific NWA clear, accessible, and deeply useful book on a topic that can be, at times, very complex. Speed to resolution, confidentiality, and data security are three non-negotiable expectations of your customer support journeys.
Smallman outlines the challenges and opportunities within that critical context and provides a roadmap for organisations to level-up and modernize their security methods. This is a timely primer for anyone new to the security and authentication space and an invaluable resource for making the case to improve your current solutions, there's something in here for every part of your org. What I most appreciate, the book never loses sight of the customer perspective, their journey and relationship to your business remains at the heart of the book's tenets and recommendations.
What Is Inside?
Part One: Why Security Matters
-
Evolution of security in customer service
-
The security/convenience trade-off
-
A two-tier process
-
Dimensions of security-process performance
-
Success and failure
-
Perceived effort and risk
-
First impressions and trust
-
Agent usability
-
Handle time
-
Automation and self-service
-
Cost of sustaining security processes
-
Complaints
-
Success and failure
-
Who and why?
-
Fraud process steps
-
Methods of attack
-
Customer perception
-
Security approaches
-
Traditional and transitional authentication methods
Part Two: Modern Call-Centre Security
-
Principles of modern security
-
Passive (text-independent) voice biometrics
-
Network authentication and detection
-
Behavioural analytics
-
Understanding the performance of modern methods
-
Delivering modern security
-
Security Path Visualisation
-
Measuring usability
-
Measuring efficiency
-
Measuring security
-
Customer attitudes and behaviour
-
Caller frequency
-
Transaction risk
-
Plan your modern security experience
-
Strengthen with depth
-
Primary identification and authentication methods
-
Fallback identification and authentication methods
-
Step up
-
End-of-call authentication and detection measures
-
Orchestration
-
Business case – benefits
-
Business case – costs
-
Building the emotional narrative
-
Call listening and executive perception
-
Reducing uncertainty and delivery risk
Part Three: Implementing Modern Security
-
The value chain
-
Design for adoption
-
Being confident in performance
-
Engaging with potential suppliers
-
Voice-biometric registration
-
Securing voice-biometric registration
-
Authentication
-
Fraud detection
-
Withheld and unavailable numbers
-
Phone number registration and data quality
-
Identification
-
Authentication
-
Fraud detection
-
Scoring ranges
-
Putting it all together
-
Incremental implementation
-
Agent training
-
Tuning and calibration
-
Establishing postures and thresholds
-
Measuring and improving process performance
-
Measuring voice-biometrics registration
-
Managing agent performance
-
Supporting processes
-
Plan for every eventuality
-
Managing vulnerabilities