We have an upcoming need from our management to be able to get 100% identification of callers. They do not like the idea of giving the customers specific PIN's for the IVR, and want to go with an system that is dependent on customers having 800 numbers they call into that specifically identifies them. To me this seems like it is going to be a nightmare to manage as we are talking about hundreds of 800 numbers, so I was hoping to be able to pick everyone's ideas and best practices if they have a similar situation they manage. Also if better suggestions / best practices can be given for identifying customers at a 100% success rate other than implementing this type of an 800 number scenario it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time and look forward to your responses. :)

That's a tough one. Even with individual 800 numbers, you're not guaranteed 100% accuracy, since someone may call the wrong number by mistake (for example, with a block of numbers a customer could be one digit off and still get through). The most accurate solution is having them enter a member ID. My bank requires an ID, then does a lookup to see if my ANI matches a phone number associated with my account and allows me to proceed without more detailed identification when it finds a match. Something like that would probably be the best practice. If you have to use the DNIS to match a particular customer, some folks use a table set up in IA to hold the information, then use a custom handler in CustomIncomingCall.ihd to look up the DNIS in the table and populate an attribute on the call to show the caller's identity later in the system. Otherwise, for slower access (across the network rather than in memory on the IC server) you can use a database to store the info. You could set up an Attendant profile which matches on the DNIS (put in a range of DNIS for those customers who get a common menu, or one profile per customer if you want to get really complicated). Then use a DB Query operation to look up the customer info from a database and set the attribute(s) on the call. Lots of options. The best and most accurate being to have the customer enter a member ID when they hit the menu.

We use a combination of all of the methods George gave in addition to multiple 800 numbers. We don't have near as many 800's as your describing though, just enough for the different groups we have here. Say we get 3000+ calls a day and 1-2% of those calls (on average, sometimes higher) are timeouts/disconnects before or during authentication, which are going to be either marketing calls (which we disconnect known ANI's automatically) or wrong numbers. If you don't have any authentication in place, you're going to be wasting time on 30-60 calls in this case. Wasted time on calls, wasted money on more 800 numbers, wasted time on your administration skills for not implementing it properly from the get-go. More 800 numbers than you would need for an initial grouping would be a total waste in every case I can think of because the CIC can do so much better on its own.

Identification based on DNIS is unlikely to be 100% accurate because you cannot control who can call a particular number. Identification based on ANI is also unreliable since an individual may be calling from one of many different numbers or a number that you are not expecting. If security is a concern, then ANI spoofing could be a problem. Asking the caller to enter a unique identifier is likely the best option to get close to 100% identification.

Disclaimer: I don't work in marketing. You could try Mobilizer. Give your customers an App that they log into, which could even save their credentials, and then instead of them ever remembering a phone number, they can click the "call me" button, which could transmit their unique information via the web and IC could then initiate the call out to the person on their mobile app. That call object would be known to be exactly for the person who was logged into the app. Less conventional, but it avoids having to remember pins or custom 1-800 numbers.