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To stay ahead of the competition and on the path of sustained growth, you need clear line of sight to both risks and opportunities through the customer lifecycle. Gaining better insights on customers is critical to achieving that, so you can make all the right decisions, big and small, about your customers and business clients. Based on the conversations we have with our clients, we have noticed that most executives are paying a lot of attention to measuring customer experience and reducing friction across digital touch-points through the lifecycle. For customer acquisition, for example, businesses like yours look at time spent on each micro-step (e.g. data field), dropout rates at each of those steps, and do A/B testing at a very granular level. The idea is to understand all points of friction including points of confusion, frustration, etc., so you can learn from those and improve the experience. But this is not an easy task. The various challenges involved are making sense of the vast quantities of data and the immaturity of that data as well as the construct of that data. Given the fast pace at which data analytics change and evolve, our recommendation is that you invest in tools that are data and/or analytics agnostic. Thinking ahead: leveraging data analytics and cloud-based decisioning platforms to design the right customer treatment There is a largely untapped opportunity to leverage data, analytics, optimisation and decision management solutions - such as cloud-based decisioning platforms - to design the right customer treatment and identify the next best action for that customer. Selecting the appropriate timing, medium, and channel for those actions lead to greater consistency and contribute to having more relevant communications with your customers. The more relevant you are, the more precise you are with the offers and the treatments leading to improved response rates, greater connectivity and interaction with the customer. This results in memorable experiences that enhance loyalty and drive profitability.

This blog is written by Lisa Fretwell, Managing Director of Data Services at Experian. It’s no secret that women are hugely under-represented in careers relating to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In fact, research suggests that only 13% of the overall UK workforce are women in STEM and, as a consequence, we find ourselves with fewer female role models to inspire confidence and ambition in the next generation. Positive female role models are fundamental if we are to transform some of the preconceptions that girls have about a career in STEM. And part of encouraging new generations into our industry means recognising and celebrating the achievements of those women blazing a trail here and now. That’s why we are delighted to be sponsors of today’s Women in Data (UK) conference for the third successive year. This unique event helps inspire, educate and support women across the data industry. It’s a privilege to be part of the Women in Data community, to get to know more amazing women in our industry and to share their incredible stories. One of the highlights of the event is the annual ’20 Women in Data and Technology’ recognition, celebrating incredible role models who are motivating others to pursue their own career ambitions in the industry. We were particularly thrilled to learn that our very own Louise Maynard-Atem, has been included in this year’s highly prestigious list. Congratulations to Louise on a truly phenomenal and well-deserved achievement. Experian’s goal is to have a workforce that’s as rich in diversity as the people who use our services. That’s one of the many reasons we’re so excited by WiD’s mission. Together we hope to empower and encourage more women into the data industry, supporting the next generation of data scientists who can help shape the future.

We are delighted to have been placed on the inaugural Financial Times’ 2020 Diversity Leaders list, released today and accessible here. The organisers spoke to more than 80,000 employees across Europe to build the list, asking employees to rate their own employers as well as other firms around multiple categorise, taking into consideration areas including age, gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and overall diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. Over the last few years we’ve worked hard to focus on inclusion and diversity across our global business. We believe that embracing a truly inclusive culture, one where everyone has a real sense of belonging, is critical to building a diverse workforce and fostering innovation. Ultimately, it’s our ambition for our business to become as diverse as the people we serve around the world. We’re dedicated to encouraging diversity at every level within Experian. That means building our culture, our ways of working and our approach in a way that offers equality of opportunity. Supporting our employees from the moment they join our organisation, at every level. Letting people work flexibly, in the way that suits them and opens the door to new opportunities. One of the five key tenets of The Experian Way is “Value Each Other”. That means that each one of us is responsible for making this a great place to work. We treat each other with respect, trust and integrity. We support and invest in each other to help everyone achieve their potential and aspirations. We promote a culture of inclusivity and value diversity of all kinds, including thinking,  knowledge and experience. Our goal is to embrace and celebrate the diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking, and the way we harness it at Experian, helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business. Like many companies, we have more to do to be as inclusive as we would like to be. But we are proud of the work we’ve done to date, and we are delighted by the recognition given to us today.

Today (Nov. 11) Americans celebrate Veterans Day to honor all of the men and women who have served our country in uniform and to thank those who are currently serving around the world. We also take time to welcome a new generation of veterans home from war. We remember our Gold Star families who have endured the loss of a family member making the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. More than 25 million veterans are now home in America. They are our friends, our families, and our loved ones. Far too many have endured the shock and pain of a combat deployment, some have become disabled, and many have made the ultimate sacrifice. All who have served have given up some of themselves as well as some of the best years of their lives. Experian is proud to embrace our veteran community and allow the flexibility for our coworkers who continue to serve. Our Military, Veterans And Patriots Employee Resource Group continues to be involved in many opportunities across our local communities from building wheelchair ramps for disabled veterans to participating in endurance challenges such as Carry the Load National Relay road march and the Murph Challenge. We recently launched Experian IDnotify, a credit and identity protection service, at no cost for those who are on active duty. We are committed to serving those who are serving us. If you have a family member or friend serving on active duty, please share the link. This Veterans Day let us take a moment to remember the sacrifices of the courageous men and women who heroically fought for the freedom and honor of America to make it the greatest nation on earth!  

At Experian we’re committed to creating a culture of continuous innovation, from the way we work to the solutions we create. This commitment has helped us create a workplace where our teams across the world have a desire to help change the lives of millions for the better. Justin Hastings, former Chief Human Resources Officer for Experian North America, recently wrote an article for the Forbes Human Resources Council which highlights the importance of creating an inclusive environment in the workplace -- and demonstrates how innovation, developing new products and services, and providing value are all crucial to a companies’ success. The article, “Deliver Innovation By Embracing Inclusion,” explores what it means to build a culture of innovation, and how to ensure employees feel comfortable bringing their different backgrounds and ideas to their role every day. This is the type of innovative culture we’re building at Experian, which celebrates these differences and works to make employees feel valued and empowered to be innovative and productive. Another concept Justin discusses in this article is “innovating to grow.” It’s important to make employees feel connected to their organization and involved in the creation of new products and services. This has a tremendous positive impact with employees providing valuable feedback, and also creating advocacy among team members. For example when developing Experian Boost, which has helped millions of people raise their credit scores, we first beta-tested and shared the innovation internally and were able to garner valuable feedback and support from employees. As a result, we’ve seen tremendous success since the launch of Experian Boost earlier this year. At Experian we truly believe that inclusion is the key to creating a culture of innovation. You can read the full article here.  

For the second year in a row, Experian Costa Rica has achieved recertification from Great Places to Work in the Central America region. The honor recognizes the inclusive workplace culture that Experian Costa Rica employees and leaders have created, making it a dynamic environment for innovation and high productivity. “Getting re-certified as a Great Place to Work provides and enormous sense of pride. As an organization it validates all the efforts we make to ensure a strong healthy employee culture and as a leader it allows us to come to work knowing that we have a culture that employees enjoy working in,” said Adrian Sibaja, Director of Service Delivery for Experian Costa Rica and Chile. Experian Costa Rica is one of four Global Delivery Centers, strategically located centers of operational excellence that support Experian’s regions. The office is home to nearly 1,000 employees across different business units. This honor reinforces the workplace culture we’re fostering, which our employees are happy to brag about in confidential surveys. Costa Rica leadership is always looking for ways to make the employee culture even better. That’s why recognizing employee accomplishments and encouraging partnership between business units are among their top priorities. Congratulations to our Costa Rica colleagues!

Eva lets out a deeply frustrated exhale as she navigates moving boxes in her new apartment towards a nearby chair. She was just trying to update her address online and take care of some online banking money transfers. Now her accounts are frozen, and she has received a message to call the bank's fraud department. How could she be a fraudster? She was only guilty of taking a job and moving to Chicago. Maybe it's time to start thinking about changing banks... Meanwhile, in the bank's Texas-based fraud department, Robert spots Eva's case in his fraud investigations list. He noticed some suspicious activities and leaves Eva a voicemail, wanting to ask her a few questions to verify her identity or otherwise confirm this is in fact a fraudster infiltrating Eva's account. To prevent this potential risk of fraud from escalating, Robert decides it is better to freeze Eva's accounts while he confirms that it's actually Eva who is trying to change her address and not a fraudster using a stolen password. As both Robert and Eva work to connect and clear up this mix-up, Robert isn't getting to spend his time finding actual fraud and protecting his bank from any potential losses. Fraud hubs bring together advanced authentication technology and risk mitigation systems into a single platform As fraud attacks grow more frequent and complex, new technologies have sprung up to help meet the challenge, using a variety of tactics and tools to detect fraud. This is the case of device recognition, malware detection, identity verification, behavioural biometrics, and document verification, just to name a few. Regardless of their choice of tools and techniques, businesses across banking, retail, telecommunications, healthcare, and services industries need to know that the person interacting with them online is who they say they are. Combating fraud with layered tools strengthens businesses' defenses. But without an intelligent approach to connecting those tools, businesses catch too many good customers (like Eva) in their fraud-mitigation nets. By bringing together different types of fraud mitigation and risk management systems on a single technology platform, fraud hubs provide a solid solution to this challenge. How do fraud hubs like CrossCore help both businesses and consumers? CrossCore brings together into a single platform best-in-class tools and services such as advanced analytics, data consortium, device recognition, endpoint malware, and bot detection, behavioural biometrics, and document verification. Experian has also been named by Gartner as a representative vendor in online fraud detection in their April 2019 Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection, for its CrossCore solution.* Our flagship identity and fraud hub connects various functionalities together in a smart, orchestrated way, leveraging machine learning-driven decisioning to deliver a single fraud decision across multiple tools and enabling businesses worldwide to improve their fraud detection capabilities. CrossCore equips businesses with the most applicable tools to combat the specific fraud threats they face in their organisation. The 100 million cumulative transactions we have run on CrossCore to date show us that while one client may need additional protection against synthetic identity fraud, another may face frequent bot attacks in their account opening application, therefore requiring different approaches. It also means that if one tool can't validate a user's identity, another system can provide evidence that this is, in fact, a real customer. It's precisely the advanced analytics underpinning data modeling what gives our clients greater confidence in their identity and fraud decisions. But let's go back to Eva. In her case, CrossCore's fraud risk engine would have fired rules when she was making a change of address, as this action elevates the potential for fraud. But CrossCore's device intelligence would have shown that Eva was logging in from a known mobile phone. She was also using her phone to type information in a way that a normal user (non-fraudster) would do. In that case, CrossCore would have asked for a step-up authentication where Eva is prompted to take a selfie for biometric authentication. Now, Eva can continue to do her banking and access her accounts as she would normally do. This is a relief as Eva checks off more moving-related tasks and can enjoy her new life in a new city. Back in the bank's fraud investigation office, Robert and his colleagues would have never seen a case for their customer, Eva. Instead, they would have been able to focus their energies on high-risk cases, mitigating any emerging fraud threats. They would have also treated Eva as the good, valued customer she is and helped ensure her business in the long run. Whether it's an automotive client in South Africa, a healthcare organisation in the U.S., an insurance company in the UK, a fintech in Australia or a bank in Brazil, CrossCore is helping to solve one of the greatest challenges in decision analytics today: identifying good customers, while reducing fraud. Download the 2019 Global Identity & Fraud Report. *Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.  

As a member of the Forbes Technology Council, I get to publish articles on some of the latest technology trends and best practices. A recent piece, entitled “Are we comfortable with machines having the final say?”, deals with the sensitive issue of decisions being made by complex algorithms and how it impacts all areas of our lives. The article takes a closer look at high-impact decisions, such as loan determinations and health diagnosis, where the lack of understanding how algorithms may be used is becoming of increasing concern. In this context, it raises the importance of Explainable AI (XAI). This is a concept where technology and science are being used to explain how an algorithm or machine reaches a decision and tries to do this in a way that is transparent to users. However, this approach is still being tested and is only used in certain limited circumstances. As humans, we are taught to explain our decisions but we all know how difficult it is - and science has repeatedly shown how easily biased we are. XAI still has some way to go, but we can inspect, test and pick machines apart in a way we can never do with the human mind. So perhaps one day we will find a way to truly explain a machine’s decision. Whether that would make us comfortable with the machines having the final say, is still to be seen. Check out the full article here.

Phishing attacks have become more sophisticated and personal. We are all busy with life – work, family, commute, and dinner plans, along with keeping up on the latest news cycle. Virtually anyone could be inclined to quickly click on a link stating there is an issue with their recent order. But there's more to phishing attacks than just baiting businesses and consumers. During a recent #ExperianLive event, Mike Gross, Head of Global Identity and Fraud Product Innovation, discussed what businesses can do to protect themselves and their customers. ​ Q: You say that phishers would make good digital marketers. What do you mean by that? Mike: Like a great marketer, a good phisher understands people and their tendencies; they know how to get people to take action on their message. Take my most recent “almost phishing" incident. During the holidays, I received an email from a top online retailer stating there was a “problem with my recent order." I knew that any delay would jeopardize my holiday gift delivery. I was just about to click the “Login" button and then stopped. Thankfully, I double-checked the sender and it wasn't my favorite shopping site after all – just a really good fake email from a "phishy" sender. Like a digital marketer, phishers understand how to specifically target the things that people care about. This is why phishing attempts focused around the holidays, tax season, natural disasters, and hot news topics are often so successful. Q: Are phishers counting on the relationship and roles people have in an organization? Mike: Yes. That's the whole nature behind one of the biggest phishing attacks over the past several years – business email compromises. As a phisher, I'm sending you an email that looks like I work with you, say a vendor with a message that reads, “I changed the account that you use to pay me; please update your payment to this new account." If there is urgency behind it, it is taken seriously - for example, to avoid being late on paying a vendor. Human nature is being helpful and reacting, especially in this fast-paced, hyper-connected world – and that's why these scams continue to work. Q: What other phishing trends are you seeing? Mike: They've evolved over time. Take the simple phishing email; it's not so simple anymore. Nowadays, attacks are personalized to both the business and specific person – and phishers are taking advantage of automation and targeting tools so they can get the most reward for their effort. “Smishing" is variant of phishing focused on the phone channel, where attackers target victims with an SMS-based attack; you've probably seen them. You get a text and link from what you think is your friend saying something like “Check out this funny video!" But it isn't legitimate; it's a fraudster that is spoofing your friend's phone number. Then there is “vishing" which is a voice-based attack. This is where a fraudster pretends to be someone they're not (like a consumer's financial institution) and tries to obtain personal information or take over an existing account. Q: Wow! Phishing fraud is sophisticated. What has led to that? Mike: We've seen a tremendous leap in technology used. There is a great example of that last year with a U.K. bank. Their customers expect that if there is an out-of-place transaction, the bank will call them. In this particular vishing scheme, vishers used compromised accountholder usernames and passwords to log into customer accounts and set up money transfers. Knowing that this would alert accountholders to the attempted transfer using the SMS one-time passcode, phishers called legitimate customers, impersonated the bank, and stated that since the customer was a recent fraud attack victim, the bank needed confirmation that they were the accountholder. The vishers told customers they would receive a passcode. While the customer confirmed the code, the vishers submitted the fraudulent transfer. Q: What trends and techniques are you seeing? Mike: Two of the big trends we're seeing is around Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and SMS to find victims. A big part of phishing is what we call “spear phishing." This targets individuals with access to an organization's financial accounts or internal systems. Another term is “whaling" which targets a specific high-profile individual. The phishers are no longer just sending out blanket lottery scam and Nigerian prince emails with misspellings to millions of people. It's very focused – and phishers can easily do this using machine learning and AI. Q: Do you notice any seasonality, or spikes in phishing based on a certain time of year? Mike: The holidays are one because so many people go to their favorite shopping sites and buy items that are completely out of pattern based on what they usually do online. Another good example is tax season. We saw phishers impersonate top tax and financial management software providers, allowing consumers to “quickly and easily submit their tax forms online." What's worse is that phishers use the knowledge you have about phishing against you. Things like “How do you protect yourself? Click on this link to learn more" or “Click this link to download software and protect your devices." Also, fraudsters pay attention to the news, so whether it's a natural disaster or the cathedral fire that happened in Paris last April, phishers see those as opportunities to prey on victims simply trying to donate to a worthy cause. Q: What advice do you have for businesses and consumers to protect themselves against phishing attacks? Mike: My advice for businesses is to focus on technology and training. Strong technology solutions must be in place at all businesses to block phishing emails that are coming from suspicious sites – and for the most part, large organizations do a great job of that. Smaller businesses can also take advantage of technology solutions from their internet providers. Businesses can implement web blocking software for less secure Internet sites and filter what types of content employees can have access to on business devices. A lot of companies hire outside consultants to talk about the different types of phishing attacks with employees. These are helpful, but the key is to not allow training to become static because attackers evolve so quickly. Both businesses and consumers can use the email filtering option that is available through nearly every email provider. Don't click on any attachments that even remotely look suspicious - especially if they've been texted to you from someone you either don't know or the message appears out of character for someone you know. Q: What activities is your group taking on that will help businesses and their customers fight phishing attacks? Mike: There are several things we're doing that impact businesses and consumers offline and digitally. We help businesses recognize their customers and authenticate them, whether that's helping customers with a new bank account, enabling easy checkout at a favorite retailer app, or protecting account logins. 99% of people trying to access accounts are the legitimate account holder; it's that 1% though that causes a lot of friction for good customers. So, we're trying to make it easier for those consumers to quickly pass through all of the controls so authentication is easier. That translates into consumer loyalty for brands. Q: And that's what it's really all about? Mike: It is. We help businesses recognize their customers and also ensure that they are catching fraudsters on the back end. But we also strive to make that recognition or user experience as seamless as possible, with the right scrutiny for the risk level of that business. Mike Gross leads product innovation strategy for Global Identity and Fraud at Experian. Check out the entire podcast and video on how to protect your business from phishing here.