News about security breaches and digital fraud is increasingly becoming common. The massive security breach that affected over 50 million Facebook users worldwide has sparked alarm among social media users and become a scandal known all across the world wide web. Despite setting up stringent security infrastructure, cyber criminals seem to have upgraded their technology, making them capable of hacking even the most secured databases.
Security breaches are always a major scandal that can result in customer dissatisfaction. If not addressed or prevented, such scandals could negatively affect your brand and lead to financial and legal consequences – something that businesses don’t want.
Security analysts at MorganSystems, Dallas IT Support company note that the use of verification services, such as phone validation services by Byteplant or email validation, can significantly reduce security breaches. Phone validation users can enjoy its hosts of other benefits that we’ll discuss later.
What is phone validation?
Just like email validation, phone validation checks the validity of a phone number by sending an SMS or voice message to the user and instructing him to input it back. The user then types the code back into the application. Executing the instruction means the user has access to the phone number provided.
Making sure that the user has access to the phone number is important because the phone serves as your main mode of communication. It also serves as an identification of the user. Unlike email validation, phone validation is more reliable because it has higher chances of ridding out spammers and fraudsters.
Email verification is also becoming less reliable since users and bots can create email accounts with ease. On the other hand, creating a fraudulent phone number can be cumbersome to fraudsters as it requires extra expense, effort and time – something that cybercriminals find limiting. The use of phone validation is regarded as more effective; in fact, Google now uses phone validation for registering new accounts.
Aside from ensuring that the user has access to the phone, validating phone number is also important given the fact that there are around 1 billion fixed line subscribers and over 7.5 billion mobile phone subscribers. This means users could just randomly pick a number and claim it as theirs. Considering this possibility, it makes sense for businesses to invest in phone validation services to guarantee the accuracy of their database.
So, what are the other benefits of phone validation services?
Better customer experience – One of the best communication channels is through the phone. By validating their phone numbers, you can reach out to them for after-sales support and ensure that this channel remains open.
Increase revenue opportunities – Determining whether a phone number is active and accurate before including the consumer in your contact list allows you to reach high conversion leads, as well as higher revenue opportunities.
Efficient communication – It is important for businesses to segregate landline and mobile numbers for a more efficient communication. Furthermore, this helps ensure compliance with telemarketing rules and regulations, thereby avoiding risks.
Verify consumer identity – Phone validation allows you to verify user identity before they are even included in your contacts list and consumer database. Once validated, the phone number is tied to the user and will establish a global trust anchor for secure access of the user. Throughout the account lifecycle, the user’s phone number can be used to confirm their identity at different stages of the consumer process.
User convenience – With phone validation services, the end-user will simply need to verify their phone number on registration. There is no need for traditional identity verification methods, such as username/password and email validation. It simplifies the account registration process.
Prevent fraud – As discussed above, phone verification can greatly help thwart fraud and bulk account creation. It provides real-time security and enables you to identify a spammer or bot registering multiple fake user accounts. One of the pressing problems of companies is the proliferation of fake users that do not add value to your business and even saps the resources. Further, these fake accounts can wreak havoc by spamming verified user accounts.
Final thoughts
Phone validation services are increasingly becoming an essential part of business operations. It can significantly decrease the possibility of a data breach while improving efficiency in every stage of the consumer lifecycle from account registration through different client engagement activities. With billions of mobile and landline phone subscribers worldwide, phone validation is definitely the best way for user identity verification.
