How data privacy affects customer experience

Two distinctive trends are seemingly becoming prominent in the industry and change the way the industry does business. These two trends have been marked as potential influencers in the commercial industry.

 The two instances are firstly, the focus of CX programs and other methods used to meet the needs of customers are focused on initiating a direct communication with the customers individually. Secondly, the regulations guiding handling on personal data and data protection are becoming more stringent. The consequence of these scenarios in the commercial industry is that businesses will have to contend with more challenges now, whenever they embark on multinational CX programs.

Every customer that uses your services trusts you with their data.

Now that your company has secured the loyalty of numerous customers, a lot of financial investment has undoubtedly gone into developing your customer support services and delivery services to function at their highest capacities. Whilst these aspects of your business and other operational aspects should never be neglected, you must also consider another area which could ultimately ruin your business is compromised. Every customer who uses your services has trusted you with their confidential information to an extent. It is your responsibility to protect this information.

 Protecting customer data

 The current statistical reports indicate that a majority of the consumers have lost confidence in the measures put in place by businesses to protect their confidential information. This unfortunate trend is not encouraged by the fact that most of the business efforts are directed at increasing the customer base and generating more revenue with little minimal attention on the improvement of security systems to protect the customer confidential information.

 The Importance of Customer Data

 Customer data is very important to businesses. There is hardly a business service that can be accessed currently without being required to provide some form of identification or personal information. This is the common experience when you need to buy products online or if you have to use certain public services. When we call in to speak with a customer representative, you would be warned that your interaction might be recorded. So why is all this information very important to the corporate players?

All organizations big or small value the information retrieved from their customers. This information is crucial to growing the business. Online based businesses have used consumer information as a means to streamline offers that seem enticing to other customers. Customer data has been used in many ways to grow businesses. Now you must be wondering if this information is this valuable, why so little being is done to protect it from being compromised.

Customer Data Protection

 Every business that takes the concerns of customer data protection seriously will definitely get ahead in business. Your customers will be willing to provide the information needed to access your services. Many businesses have refused to evolve their data protection systems from being reliant on firewalls. Firewalls have been proven to be insufficient in providing the level of protection needed to keep customer data safe. Currently, companies are getting ahead in this aspect by using advanced encryption systems to protect customer data. The following tips will help you take the right steps in protecting your customers’ data-

Adopt the Federal Trade Commission’s Safeguard Rule- this rule was actually developed for financial institutions but, recently, they have been discovered to be applicable to all businesses. It is basically about training your staff to know and comply with all the safety measures when handling customer data. This system also includes regularly updating your safety policies and testing them to find weaknesses which should be quickly addressed.

• Only necessary information should be stored for reference- if you do not need any particular information already provided by the customer, it shouldn’t be stored after the service has been rendered even though it has been encrypted.
•  Interact with your customers about cyber safety- your customers might not know many of the security measures that will protect them online. You could specify a standard for creating passwords (alphanumeric) this should be encouraged by all means to increase customer data protection. You can also make your customers feel confident in your security system by enlightening them about the measures that have been put in place to protect them.
• Improve your services - a lot of customers will readily provide their information if they are certain that the services they will be getting are the best among the competition. Many customers won’t object to companies that wish to monitor their online behavior if they are getting excellent services in return.

 There are several security measures that will go a long way to protect customer data, however using them will depend on the nature of your business. It is important to provide as much assistance as you can to help customers to also use better passwords when signing up. From previous reports, customers appreciate it when the company informs them about the measures that have been put in place to secure their information. Do this and you will earn the customers trust and loyalty to your brand.