Become a Customer Data Privacy Ambassador and see a Boost to the customer’s Affinity of your Brand

Build Your Brand an Improve CX by Being a Data Advocate

Consumer privacy is a hot topic that is not going away any time soon. Consumers are increasingly concerned about their personal information for good reason. Frequent data breaches, improper collection and usage, sharing and selling without consent, unwanted solicitations, ignored preferences, and identity theft are all too common.

To combat this, new legislation is being rolled out that allows consumers to control who has access to their personal information and how it is used. This includes rights such as: affirmative express consent, right to requesting copies or deletion of personal data, right to know or change how personal data is used (e.g., shared or sold), right to say no, and the right to be informed of a data breach.

While it’s a good rule of thumb for all domestic businesses, companies that market and sell to customers that reside in Europe need to be compliant with the European Global Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), whose goal is to give control to individuals over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment. (not sure what State side means so said in the U.S.) In the U.S., the upcoming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) set to go in effect in January 2020 and proposed legislation from Vermont and South Carolina are the latest topics in privacy. There is also a growing momentum for the creation of a national consumer privacy policy, based upon the history of Do Not Call Legislation. Creating a single, national privacy policy has the obvious benefit of reducing the number of policies companies are required to comply with.

According to the November 2018 Forrester report, Predictions 2019: Privacy And Data Ethics, “The marketing-privacy ecosystem is about to change — again. If 2018 was the year of regulatory action, then 2019 will be the year of consumer action. This will open new opportunities for brands that choose to make privacy a competitive differentiator and create significant business risk for those that choose to ignore it.” The report goes on to say, “New laws give people new rights to exercise; new tools make it easier to hide from marketers; and new approaches to transparency and consent will finally give people the ability to make purchase decisions based on how a company treats personal information.”

Becoming a Customer Data Privacy Ambassador

This is a pivotal time for organizations to transform into one that protects and honors consumers’ privacy choices and preferences. That protection will translate into elevating the brand, customer satisfaction, and most importantly, retention which then contributes to increased revenue.

Fatemeh Khatibloo helps marketers navigate the complex connections between privacy, trust, and ethical data use in the Forrester report
Make Privacy A Competitive Differentiator. She writes: “Consumers are increasingly aware of the value of their personal data. As a result, companies can no longer afford to dismiss customer concerns about the use of that data — failure to respect customers’ data preferences will drive them to more customer-obsessed competitors.”

To become a Customer Data Privacy Ambassador, here are five key areas to focus the brand’s attention:

• Require affirmative express consent prior to collecting and using consumer data. Provide a link to your current privacy policy to answer any question by the consumer about their privacy. Also, make sure you provide a clear and conspicuous mechanism directly adjacent to where the consumer data is entered and only collect the data that is needed.
• Simplify the privacy policy and consumer choice options by providing easy access for the consumer to change consent or contact preferences and request for their personal information.
• Provide the customer contact choice and contact preferences (for example: time, date, channel, offer, and product).
• Secure and protect customer data by implementing and maintaining technical and organizational measures to ensure data security. Limit access to data only to those who have a need and protect the data using encryption in motion and at rest.
• Build a customer-focused privacy response process for how you will authenticate identity for customers from third party data sources, handle special situations and create processes that walk consumers through the data removal process or personal data requests.