Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Verifying a customer

I find this practice to be quite idiotic and harmful.

Company X call a customer on his mobile phone and said - We are from company X. Are you Mr. Y? Please give me your NRIC for verification.

Is it really necessary to verify the customer by asking the NRIC?

After all, company X is calling the customer on his mobile phone. Surely, the chance that someone else is holding the mobile phone is very low?

Even if the mobile phone is being held by an unauthorized person, that person is not likely to answer the phone?

Quite often, the information is not likely to be secret. So this verification is not necessary.

To make matters worse, company may ask additional questions for verification, such as the types of accounts being held by the customer.

There is another risk - How does the customer really know that the caller is really from company X?

Many organizations in Singapore adopt this practice. They seem unable to see this matter from the perspective of the customer.

Worse, they must be following a standard practice that is prescribed by some "higher authority" or they are just copying the practice of other organization mindlessly.

Tan Kin Lian

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