Password to User: Forget Me Not!

February 3, 2012 by Mark Weston

Reported to cost anywhere from $10 to $30 per call, administering certain forgot username services or password retrieval can be a very costly and frustrating endeavor. Upwards of 80% of people have forgotten a password used for an online account, which is exactly what most help desk calls are regarding. And that comes as no surprise when the average online user has anywhere between seven and 25 online accounts they log into daily.

We know that the less frequently a password is used, the more likely it will have to be reset at next use - meaning users will always require assistance. Expecting this assistance to be 100% self-serve is presuming too much, but there are definitely ways to improve the chances of user success at independent online password recovery – like decreasing the time an administrator spends with users that failed to assist themselves.

Healthx has always had a self-administered “Forgot” service, where users could retrieve their lost usernames and reset their passwords. But by listening to client feedback, monitoring our Forgot service success rate, and looking at industry standards, we have developed three new amenities to further increase user success rates in self-retrieving usernames and resetting passwords, as well as reducing call time for admins when users fail:

Email Validation Service: Valid and accessible email accounts have been identified as an obstacle to username retrieval and password resets. Oftentimes this information is faked, forgotten, or is not understood by the end-user; but online account recovery depends on it. With the email validation service turned on, users are required to prove the email address listed for the account is valid and that they have access to it.

Splash Service: We have set up a scheduled splash screen for Account Recovery, allowing users to easily update key information in the future event that they forget their username or password.

Forgot 2.0 Service: We have made multiple enhancements to the new Forgot service, utilizing current industry standards for better security, a better self-service success rate, and reduction in administrator time to service users that fail to self-serve online:

• Online username retrieval without email account
• Never sending username or temporary password via email
• Contact support email with useful tracking information appended

Watch a demo of all the new Forgot 2.0 features!

Posted in Engineering, Healthx