- In an increasingly digital world, customer experience can be the dividing line between successful and unsuccessful businesses.
- But does successfully implementing customer experience mean companies need to do away with proper cybersecurity?
A personalized, relevant, and seamless customer experience can make or break your business. Approximately 85% of respondents to Oxford Economics and Adobe's State of Digital Customer Experience (CX) survey said improving customer experience is a top or key business priority.
Oxford Economics found that prioritizing CX leads to higher new customer acquisition rates (+23%), higher lead generation (+18%), higher referral rates (+17%), and lower likelihood of repeat customers. We found that it led to an increase (+12%). , profit per customer or account increases (+9%).
The US government is also looking to reap the benefits of a well-implemented CX strategy. Last year, the Biden administration requested $500 million from nine federal agencies as part of its fiscal year 2024 budget, including the Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, Labor Department, Census Bureau, and Social Security Administration.
This $500 million funding request follows President Biden's 2012 executive order to transform the federal government's customer experience and service delivery to rebuild trust in government. This is a precursor to the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy, which aims to build public trust.
While governments recognize the importance of these two, the question is whether public or private organizations are doing enough to align data security and CX.
How do security protocols impact CX?
One of the more important elements of good CX is something the average user is becoming increasingly wary of the risks they share with businesses over the internet: valuable data. This directly prohibits companies from providing personalized experiences.
As many as 60% of customers in the Digital CX landscape say they plan to stop working with companies because of the need for more transparency in how their data is used. Because when an organization suffers a data breach, customers are at risk from adversaries and typical fraudsters who illegally obtain compromised data.
Additionally, a substandard user experience marred by careless security obligations can lead to an unsatisfactory CX. “Security may require additional steps to accomplish the same goal, such as requiring multi-factor authentication when logging into an account or requiring a complex password. These implementations may If it's not done right, it can cause a lot of friction for the end user or the customer,'' James McQuiggan, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, told Spiceworks via email.
“Unfortunately, some organizations do not consider the impact on user experience when defining requirements and considering the customer journey.”
This may seem like a classic catch-22 situation. Businesses want to deliver great CX without compromising the cybersecurity and privacy frameworks mandated by regulations. In contrast, proper cybersecurity can lead to poor CX.
However, this is not the case. It's important to remove the antagonistic lens of CX and data security and view the two as highly intertwined.
For companies, building trust should pave the way to CX.
Therefore, data security, privacy, and regulatory compliance are non-negotiable factors in building a great CX.
But how can organizations better navigate the paradox of CX and security trade-offs?
Can CX and data security coexist?
“Data security can coexist with a great customer experience. However, it requires careful consideration, and in some cases, some security requirements can be optional rather than mandatory,” McQuiggan added.
In other words, eliminate what's unreasonable, implement what's necessary, and implement enough to avoid impacting CX.
In fact, Aberdeen Strategy & Research finds that integrating identity and privacy into the broader context of actively managing the digital customer experience reduces cart abandonment rates, improves conversion rates, and increases average order value. , we discovered that e-commerce performance can be improved.
According to Aberdeen's, the right customer identity and access management solution allows businesses to address data privacy compliance requirements with minimal friction and improves the shopper experience. Integrating identity and privacy with digital customer experiences: Turning a negative into a positive report.
A FIDO Alliance survey of 10,000 consumers from 10 countries including the US, UK, Germany, India and China found that 43% of shoppers abandoned at least one purchase, and 59% of shoppers abandoned at least one purchase. It has become clear that you have given up your access to online services. Once I couldn't remember my password.
Additionally, the right customer identity and access management tools can help address growing cybersecurity threats. In the Aberdeen survey, 84% of respondents said some online user had successfully taken over their account within the next 12 months.
Therefore, the question is not whether CX and data security coexist. It is as follows: Why aren't CX and security more closely linked?
see next: Can CxOs turn a blind eye to SSE?
How can CX and data security coexist?
1. Increased collaboration between CX and cybersecurity teams
One of the first things organizations can do is bridge the gap between cybersecurity and CX teams. Siled development cannot and will never help you achieve both goals at the same time. If the end goal is to deliver a safer CX, two teams with different perspectives need to work together.
“Simply put, CX must be considered when implementing security controls, but steps are often skipped. Testing security controls can help identify frictions and difficult areas that can worsen CX.”
For example, consider DevSecOps, which has evolved to integrate security into the product, application, or software development lifecycle. The goal was to make software security a shared responsibility from the beginning. Similarly, CX must be incorporated into the security component of product development.
2. Use non-personally identifiable information for CX when possible
Non-PII data such as IP addresses, cookies, and device IDs can be utilized to provide a certain degree of personalization. “Determining the displayed language can be done through basic geolocation information. [based on the user’s IP] We do not associate it with any account or user,” McKigan said.
Device ID helps with targeted marketing based on device browsing patterns. This disassociates users from marketers, but may provide a different level of personalization than leveraging PII.
“This may not necessarily be perfect,” McKigan continued, “but it could be a low-effort way to improve the user's experience.”
3. What are you protecting?
It's important to consider your data when making security decisions. It is unwise to allocate unnecessary resources to protect unimportant data that has little value.
“Organizations should consider the type of data being protected and the level of security required to protect it. Accounts used to order pizza online or other less sensitive There must be increased security requirements to protect PII, PHI, or financial data compared to accounts containing information,” McKigan said.
Organizations can ensure proper security by performing regular audits and implementing best practices accordingly. For sensitive data, it is desirable to leverage role-based access strategies and zero trust at a broader level.
Having good, but not optimal, security is also essential for user-facing applications. “Time and time again, we've seen access to basic accounts overprotected by controls, such as not allowing pasting passwords into the login field. That's why using a security tool like a password manager can be effective. “In such cases, people are much more likely to reuse passwords than use unique passwords generated by a password manager.”
4. Take a privacy-by-design approach
- Establish transparency obligations and assemble a team to address customer privacy concerns.
- Communicate when and for what purpose your data will be collected.
- Design your product with automatic timed logouts to make it easy to opt out of your services.
- Educate your customers about the implications of sharing sensitive information and proactively inform them of the latest updates to privacy regulations.
- Emphasize your organization's compliance with regulations.
How does your company balance CX and cybersecurity? Please share with linkedin, Xor Facebook. We look forward to hearing from you!
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