VOICE SECURITY – Retail
Case Study
Major Retailer Eliminates Nearly 1,000 Daily Threat Calls with Mutare Voice Firewall
Summary
The Client
One of the Nation’s largest private retailers with more than 1,000 store outlets and 46,000 employees specializing in the sale of home décor, arts, and craft supplies.
The Problem
The high volume of unwanted spam and nefarious calls ringing through to headquarters and store outlets was severely impacting employee performance and service to customers, prompting the organization’s CIO to demand that an immediate solution be found to stop the incessant attacks.
The Impact
- Handling nuisance and fraudulent calls consumes employee time, driving up labor costs without adding value.
- Frequent unwanted calls disrupt personal service to in-store customers, undermining customer experience and brand loyalty.
- Abandoned calls from legitimate customers left on hold due to spam-clogged lines = lost sales opportunities.
- Nefarious call activity increases security risk and related financial fallout.
The Solution
Mutare’s multi-layered voice firewall immediately blocks or diverts the majority of robocalls, spoof calls, and social engineering/vishing callers before those calls can ring through and disrupt or compromise an intended target. This not only helped normalize productive workflow for staff and executives, but it also reduced the organization’s exposure to potential fraud and other voice-based threats.
Customer Perspective
Sr. Infrastructure Project Manager
“Getting this done was a very big deal. Once our CIO saw the solution in action for herself, there was no need for further discussion. She was thrilled.”
Full Story
The Impact
“Spam and scam calls were coming into our organization every day, all day long, and it was impossible to know which were good calls and which were going to be just another waste of time if answered,” reports the senior infrastructure project manager of this well-known retail organization. “Our company has a culture of strong customer support – our people answer their phones because each call could be an opportunity for positive interaction with our customers.”
Additionally, he notes, positive personal interactions with customers at the store level is critical to the company’s brand. Unfortunately, the growing intrusion of nuisance and nefarious calls was having a debilitating effect on operational efficiency, customer service, and employee performance. As complaints poured in from across the country, this organization’s CIO decided enough was enough and vowed to take action.
Voice Security Made Possible
A team of IT professionals and systems engineers was formed to evaluate potential solutions. They quickly narrowed their search, comparing Mutare’s Voice Traffic Filter with that of another provider. Mutare conducted a Voice Security Assessment (VSA) that revealed more than 6% of incoming calls were wasteful spam and robocalls. That amounted to nearly 1,000 disruptive calls daily. What’s more, a more detailed analysis showed that a large number or those calls were actually criminal scams intent on extracting personal data or money from their victims. A live demo allowed the team to see both the filtering power and administrative ease of Voice Traffic Filter, including its extensive database of unwanted calls, flexible rules creation, and the “do no harm” protection of the application’s extra layer of call vetting through its unique Voice CAPTCHA feature.
Systems architects were quick to embrace VTF’s light-footprint architecture and modern server configurations that enables seamless integration with their existing Cisco infrastructure, reporting that the other legacy solution simply could not compete. Mutare’s positive impression was further elevated with the impressive level of knowledge shared by its experienced engineers and the responsiveness of its support staff.
“I could pick up the phone and someone would answer on your (Mutare’s) side,” notes the project manager. “If we had an issue, you would react. With the other company, we’d call and they would not get back for a week. Then they’d send a person who did not know anything.”
Applying the Right Voice Security Solution
Having settled on Voice Traffic Filter, the IT team presented their recommendation to the CIO. “Getting this done was a very big deal,” notes the project manager. “Once our CIO saw the solution in action for herself, there was no need for further discussion. She was thrilled.” The decision was quickly made to implement Voice Traffic Filter, starting with corporate campus employees. Once fully tested and tuned, the organization plans to roll out the application to its nearly 1,000 retail store locations.
