Skip to main content


         This documentation site is for previous versions. Visit our new documentation site for current releases.      
 

Customer verification

Updated on January 6, 2022

The Customer verification process verifies the authenticity of a customer to help ensure that the CSR has selected the correct account or policy, and to help prevent malicious actors from accessing data. The CSR asks the verification questions at the start of the interaction, before launching a service case, or both.

Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide

The following figure shows an example of a verification question that a CSR sees during a customer interaction:

Example of customer verification questions presented one at a time
Example of customer verification questions presented one at a time

Configuring customer verification

To configure customer verification:

  1. Configure the customer verification questions and categories. For information, see "Configuring customer verification settings and questions," later in this section.

    If you have not yet defined the source for the questions, configure it first as described in Adding a new scope for business conditions.

  2. For date questions, configure the date format that the CSR will see. For information, see "Configuring the CSR view of customer verification dates", later in this section.
  3. Select a question category for the service request or interaction case type. For information, see "Adding customer verification to an interaction or service case type," later in this section.

Enabling customer verification for interactions and case types

In the Pega Customer Service application, only the inbound phone call interaction type is configured to use customer verification.

For out-of-the-box case types and the case types created from a case type template, the flow that launches the customer verification process is included in the case type lifecycle. To enable verification for these case types, you select the verification questions for the case type, and then update the DetermineEligibilityToRun decision table. For information, see "Adding customer verification to an interaction or service case type," later in this topic.

For service request types that were not created from a case type template, select the verification questions for the case type, and then add the ServiceCaseVerification flow to the service request type. For information, see "Adding customer verification to a non-templatized case type," later in this topic.

Customer verification questions

Customer verification questions are grouped into categories, based on the context in which the questions are asked, for example, when an inbound call is received. The interaction case type or service case type determines which category of questions is displayed to the customer service representative (CSR). The application includes default question categories that vary by application, and you can add more question categories, and also modify or delete the default question categories.

Question format and sources

A customer verification question has three parts:

  • The question text that the CSR reads to the customer.
  • The data source that contains the answer, for example, the Account record.
  • The data source field that contains the answer, for example, the account number.

The data sources for customer verification vary by application, and you can configure additional data sources. For information, see Adding a new scope for business conditions.

The following table shows the default data sources and question categories for each application:

Default data sources for customer verification

ApplicationDefault data sources Default question categories
Pega Customer ServiceAccount, Contact, and PrimaryVerify account, Verify contact
Pega Customer Service for CommunicationsAccount, ContactVerify contact
Pega Customer Service for Financial ServicesAccount, IndividualsVerify account, Verify contact
Pega Customer Service for HealthcareMember, Patient, Practitioner, ProviderVerify member, Verify patient, Verify practitioner, Verify provider organization
Pega Customer Service for InsuranceAuto Policy Data, Contact, Life Policy Data, Policy Caller, Beneficiary

You can localize questions so that the CSR sees the questions in their preferred language. For information, see Localizing your application.

Question operators (AND and OR)

A category can contain one or more questions. If a category has only one question, that question must be answered correctly or else verification fails. If a category has more than one question, the AND or OR operators determine whether all questions are mandatory and the sequence in which the questions are asked.

  • If two questions are joined by an AND operator, the customer must answer both questions correctly to pass verification.
  • If two (or more) questions are joined by an OR operator, the customer only needs to answer one question in the group correctly. However, verification can still fail if the customer exceeds the maximum allowed incorrect responses. See "Maximum incorrect answers allowed," later in this topic.

The application presents the mandatory questions before the optional questions to ensure that the interaction ends quickly if the customer cannot answer the mandatory questions.

For example, suppose an Incoming Phone category consists of the following questions and operators:

Example questions and operators
An example of two customer verification question groups, one with some optional questions and one with a required question

In this example, the question in group 2 would be asked first, because it is mandatory and verification will fail if the customer answers it incorrectly. The question in group 1 is asked second because the customer must only answer one question in that group correctly to proceed.

Maximum incorrect answers allowed

There is a maximum number of incorrect responses allowed. When this value is exceeded, the verification fails. For example, suppose a question group consists of three OR questions, and the maximum allowed incorrect responses is 1. If the customer answers the first two questions incorrectly, the verification fails even though there is a third possible question in the group.

The total count of incorrect responses considers each verification that occurs during a single interaction. For example, if there is one verification for the interaction type and a second verification for the service request type, then incorrect answers from both verifications counts towards the maximum allowed.

Duplicate questions

If there are multiple verifications (for example, at the start of the interaction, and then at the start of a subsequent case), the application remembers which questions were answered correctly and does not ask them a second time. This includes correct answers provided during the interactive voice response (IVR) portion of an interaction. For information about passing IVR verification questions and responses to Pega Customer Service, see Interactive Voice Response with Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVR-IVA) APIs.

Configuring customer verification settings and questions

Configure the customer verification options and questions that a CSR asks at the start of an interaction or service case. The Customer verification process ensures the authenticity of a customer and it ensures that the customer service representative (CSR) has selected the correct account or policy.

Before you begin: Ensure that you have defined all sources for the customer verification questions.
  1. In the navigation pane of App Studio, click SettingsGeneralCustomer verification.
  2. To allow a CSR to skip the customer verification questions, select the Allow CSR with ByPassCustomerVerification privilege to skip verification process check box.
    When you select this option, a CSR with the required privilege can skip verification by clicking the Other options menu on the Verify contact window, and then selecting the Bypass verification command. This option is appropriate only for CSRs who are relationship managers handling requests from known callers.
  3. To show the CSR or customer one verification question at a time, select the Show questions one at a time during verification process check box. To show all questions at the same time, do not select this check box.
  4. In the Verification fails after this many incorrect responses field, select a number between 0 and 6 to indicate the number of incorrect responses to OR questions that will cause verification to fail.

    This is a cumulative count that applies to all verifications that occur during the interaction. For example, if there are two verifications during an interaction, and you allow one incorrect response, then verification fails when a second incorrect response is provided during either the first or second verification.

    If a customer answers an AND question incorrectly, then verification fails immediately.

  5. Define one or more verification question categories.
    Tip: To copy an existing category as a starting point for a new category, select the Clone option from the Other actions menu to the right of the category.

    If you define only one question for a category, then the question is an AND question and the customer must answer it correctly to proceed with the interaction. If you define more than one question for a category, you can select whether the customer must answer all questions correctly, or whether they only need to answer one question in the group correctly in order to proceed.

    1. Click Add category.
    2. In the Name field, enter a name for this category of questions.
    3. In the Description field, enter a description of this category of questions.
    4. In the Question field, enter the question that the CSR presents to the customer.
    5. In the Select source list, select the data source that contains the answer.

      To review the default data sources for each application, see "Question format and sources" earlier in this section.

      For information about how to configure other data sources for use in customer verification, see Adding a new scope for business conditions.

    6. In the Select answer list, select the field that contains the answer. For example, Last name.
    7. To define an additional question that customers must answer correctly, click +and, and then enter the question, source, and answer.
    8. To define an alternative question that can be asked if the customer gets this question wrong, click +or, and then enter the alternative question, source, and answer.
    9. Click Submit.
  6. Click Save.
For example:

The following video demonstrates how to configure customer verification settings and questions:

Adding customer verification to an interaction or service case type

For interaction types and service requests that require customer verification, use App Studio to modify the case type and select the customer verification questions category. For templatized case types, you must also enable customer verification for the case type by modifying the DetermineEligibilityToRun decision table in Dev Studio.

Note: For non-templatized case types, you must also add the customer verification flow to the case type. For information, see "Adding customer verification to a non-templatized case type," later in this section.
If the customer verification questions will vary based on the context (for example, based on the caller type), you can select business conditions to determine which questions to ask. buse business conditions to determine which questions to ask.
Tip: When using business conditions to select customer verification questions, define them in order by priority. The first matching business condition determines which questions are asked. To ensure that verification occurs, define at least one business condition that will always be true.
  1. In the navigation pane of App Studio, click Case types.
  2. Click the case type name to open it.
  3. On the Settings tab, click Case processing options.
  4. In the Customer verification section, select a verification option:
    ChoicesActions
    No verificationThis is the default setting. No customer verification is required for this interaction case type or service case type.
    Same category for all customersThe same customer verification questions are asked for this interaction case type or service case type in all contexts.

    In the Questions category list, select one category of customer verification questions to ask.

    Category is dependent on business conditionDifferent customer verification questions are asked for this interaction case type or service case type, depending on the context.

    Proceed to the next step.

  5. If you selected Category is dependent on business condition, define each possible question category and condition.

    Define the categories in sequence by priority; the first matching condition determines which questions the customer service representative (CSR) asks. The following figure shows a healthcare case type configured to ask different questions based on the customer type, for example, member:

    Verification questions vary based on business conditions
    Case type configured to show verification questions based on matching business condition.
    1. Click Add category.
    2. In the Question category list, select a question category.
    3. In the Trigger when list, select when this question category is a match:
      • Any of the following conditions are met - Call this question category when any of the specified conditions match.
      • All of the following conditions are met - Call this question category when all of the specified conditions match.
    4. Click Add condition.
    5. From Business conditions list, select a business condition, for example, Account is overdue.
    6. From the Operator list, select is true or is false, to determine when the condition is a match.
    7. Click Submit.
  6. Click Save.
  7. For templatized case types, use Dev Studio to change the default behavior of the case type so that it launches customer verification.
    1. In the header of Dev Studio, search for an open the DetermineEligibilityToRun decision table.
    2. Locate the rows, and change the value in the Return column from Eligible to Additional verification required for all applicable rows.
      Update customer verification decision table
      Default return actions for a case type.
    3. Click Save.
For example:

The following video demonstrates how to add customer verification to an interaction or service case type:

Configuring the CSR view of customer verification dates

During customer verification, the default appearance of a date value is an internal system value that is not meaningful to a CSR. For each customer verification question that requires a date answer, configure the date format to show to the CSR, for example, MM/DD/YYYY.

  1. In the header of Dev Studio, search for and open the cyFormatAnswer data transform.
  2. Click the Add a row icon.
  3. In the Action column, select When.
    Result: A child row is created with a default action of Set.
  4. In the parent row, in the Target field, enter an expression that identifies the date field in this format: .czQuestionName == "PropertyName".
    For example: .czQuestionName == "DateOfBirth"
  5. In the child row, configure how to display the date value to the CSR.
    1. In the Target field, enter .czQuestionAnswer.
    2. In the Source column, enter an expression that defines how you want to display the date.
      For example: @format("MM/DD/YYYY".czQuestionField)
      For information about the available formats, contact a technical resource from your application project team.
    Example of a formatted date field
    Example formatting for a date field.
  6. Click Save.

Adding customer verification to a non-templatized case type

A case type that was not created from a case type template does not include the flow that is required for customer verification. Complete the steps in this topic to add customer verification to a non-templatized case type. Typically a case in the Work- class is not templatized.

Tip: Case types should always be created from a case type template when possible.
  1. In the header of Dev Studio, search for and open the ServiceCaseVerification flow in the Work- class.
    ServiceCaseVerification flow
    Visual representation of the ServiceCaseVerification flow with alternate stage selected in case of verification failure
  2. Save a copy of the flow to the class for the non-templatized case type, for example, if adding customer verification to the GDPR Compliance case type, copy the flow to the PegaCA-Work-GDPRCompliance class.
  3. Open the flow, and then double-click the Change to a specific stage shape to open it.
  4. Select the Not verified stage, and then click Submit.
    If you are using a different stage for verification failure, select that stage instead. By selecting an alternate stage for verification failure, you ensure that the case gets resolved with the correct status.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Open the case type, and modify the case life cycle to include a process that calls the ServiceCaseVerification flow.
    For information, see Processes in a case life cycle.
  7. Click Save.

Tags

Pega Customer Service 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Communications 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Financial Services 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Healthcare 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Insurance 8.7

Have a question? Get answers now.

Visit the Support Center to ask questions, engage in discussions, share ideas, and help others.

Visit the Support Center

Did you find this content helpful?

Yes
No

Want to help us improve this content?
Suggest an edit

We'd prefer it if you saw us at our best.

Pega.com is not optimized for Internet Explorer. For the optimal experience, please use:

Close Deprecation Notice
Contact us