How Mobile Device Intelligence Can Improve Digital Onboarding

As mobile users continue to expand the range of products and services they’re willing to access via their device, they also become more familiar with facing the different elements associated with completing a digital onboarding process. That said, there’s still no excuse for online-focused businesses to be making this process more drawn out for users than it needs to be.

The total value of payments made using mobile devices amounted to $503 billion in 2020 and the same research suggests over half of all millennials have made a payment via a mobile device.

Therefore, it’s essential to take every measure to streamline this process. Verify from TMT ID enables the use of mobile device intelligence to be integrated into your existing onboarding journey to reduce friction. Although the specific structures of onboarding may vary for different organisations – increasing security whilst reducing friction is a key consideration.

However, this doesn’t have to mean endless additional data to collect and result in your prospective customers heading to your competitors. Rather it can be utilised to improve the overall experience for both customers and businesses alike!

Friction Impacts Your Digital Onboarding

Even the best digital experiences and most thought-out process can come under stress when live customers are trying to navigate your system, such as an application process. Resulting in prospective customers abandoning your onboarding process.

We have highlighted the most common pressure points where users can face friction:

User focused design – Strong user experience (UX) throughout your digital touchpoints is a cornerstone in reducing customer abandonment. The number of clicks associated with completing an onboard or specific fields within an application form can directly impact results. The underlying objective of any digital onboarding process is to be as easy as possible for customers, whilst maintaining the integrity of the process. So, it’s important to structure this for users and not your internal administrative processes.

Psychological & behavioural factors – Just like how your friendly human staff members are focused on building trust with your prospective customers, your digital onboarding process should be focused on doing the same to maximise results. For example, don’t ask for the more personal details associated with their account and group similar tasks together to again streamline the process. Even minor details like using too many capital letters can affect overall perceptions of trust!

Advocating AI – Artificial Intelligence, even in the simplest form of a well-structured chatbot, has a direct impact on the conversion rates for new customer sign-ups. Chatbots can also be linked to a real customer service agent within office hours which is again proven to increase the number of customers completing applications.

Pre-Fill & Validation Services – It is also possible to implement a range of pre-filled information to assist in reducing the number of fields your customers have to fill in directly during the onboarding process. This covers traditional KYC elements to validate addresses, through to more recent enhancements such as using a device camera to take a picture of credit card details. Live data checks behind the scenes in real time as a customer is filling out a form, such as mobile number to name match, can verify the details provided are genuine.

Mobile Number Verification – In a similar fashion, but in a way unnoticed by customers, it is possible to integrate a full range of security validation features into your customer onboarding via a mobile number validation & verification tool or API. From the data you have already captured during your onboarding process, it’s possible to verify not only if a customer is real & active – but also the key information provided matches that used with the mobile device in question. This can vastly reduce levels of account fraud when factored into your digital onboarding strategy and can also be used as an ongoing real time monitor for your existing customers.

Mobile Data Intelligence – The Mobile Verification Process

There are several verification options available in the market. These range from simple options like security questions through to more specific functionality, such as uploading and scanning a photo to be checked against a customer’s ID documents or passport.

Mobile number intelligence and mobile device verification are powerful tools in streamlining this process whilst still providing an enhanced level of account accuracy, security and fraud prevention. There are many data points both within your device and across mobile networks which can be analysed to validate whether a user is authentic. One of the best features is that this can all be done seamlessly, behind the scenes and in a matter of milliseconds.

There are several key points to the overall mobile verification process, which is started when a customer submits their mobile phone number on a sign up page or application:

Valid Number Check – Our API confirms that the mobile number provided is real and active.

Location – Our verification API software analyses the relevant location of the mobile number and other live network data to determine if the number is actually in the country customers say they are. Many of our data points are also available globally, so your onboarding process can remain constant.

Name and Number Authentication – This is then checked against the live mobile network operator databases in the location in question.

Integrated Analysis & Results – Once checked your verified results are returned within a fraction of a second, providing additional security benefits with no added friction for your customer. Our API allows you to integrate a number validity check into existing workflows for your customer onboarding. Our verification platform is also georedundant and automatically use the best combination of data sources to return the information you need to see as part of your query.

Ongoing Fraud Prevention – Specifically with our Verify Protect software suite, users also have the ability to proactively monitor the growing risk of user account fraud on an ongoing basis. All your customer mobile numbers can be monitored to give real-time protection, meaning you can target your security settings to make sure you only add friction to their login process when needed. This allows you to ensure the numbers in your store remain active, real, and less susceptible to account takeover fraud.

Why Does Mobile Device Intelligence Reduce Friction?

A good question. To sum this up the beauty lies in the classic adage that ‘less is more’. From less customer data compared to other verification methods, it’s possible to learn a lot more about your customers and provide a more secure & streamlined onboarding experience for them.

Furthermore, integration is key, meaning that it’s possible to implement additional security checks based on a customer’s mobile numbers which they are usually already providing in most cases. Our team of specialists are also on hand if you have specific questions about how this would integrate with your existing technical setup.

As technologies develop, an ever-increasing range of information can be extracted from a customer’s mobile device to help validate their identity – including the growing use of bio-metric data. The more this becomes a seamless part of the user process, the more mobile data can help protect your customers. Speak to our team of specialists to find the perfect solution for your business today.