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Securing Customer Loyalty, With Data Security

A vital component of maintaining customer loyalty is ensuring that you can keep their critical information safe; and, more importantly, that they believe in your ability to do so.

How is customer data security compromised?

A survey by the digital security company, Gemalto, offers some interesting insights into this question, and certainly shows why customer data security should be of concern to anyone striving for a good customer experience – not just the IT department charged with keeping that data safe.

Who’s to blame for compromised security?

It’s clear from the results of the survey – of 9,000 consumers across 11 countries – that companies bear the brunt of the blame when it comes to security breaches.

The consensus from respondents was that 70 percent of the responsibility for protecting and securing customer data lies with the company itself, and only 30 percent with customers.

Surely enough, a closer look at the measures customers themselves take to ensure their own security revealed the following:

  • 53 percent of surveyed consumers use the same password across some or all of their accounts
  • 13 percent admit to using the same password across all of their online accounts

This means that, absent of any additional security measures, a company could find customer data compromised through no fault of its own: all it needs is for the hackers to get a customer’s password from another site.

Security vs. usability

Two-factor authentication is one solution to this issue, but its application is far from widespread:

  • Only 43 percent of respondents reported two-factor authentication being used for their online banking
  • A similar 42 percent was reported for mobile banking

This is because two-factor authentication is, as with many other security measures, incompatible with one of the main aims of any organisation dealing with today’s consumers: delivering an experience that is streamlined, and easy to use.

Another challenge your organisation therefore needs to master is striking the perfect balance between customer security and usability. Your customers are expecting you to provide the very best in protecting their data, in the most unobtrusive way possible.

As the survey says: “The modern-day consumer is all about convenience and they expect businesses to provide this, while also keeping their data safe.”

If you lose their data, you’ll lose your customers too

Now, almost 50 percent of respondents said they would cease doing business with a retailer that suffered a breach of personal data, and this figure was even higher for those which lost their customers’ financial information, at just over 60 percent.

Even more alarmingly, the survey found that customers already have little faith in an organisation’s ability to keep critical data safe.

More than half (58 percent) of the 9,000 customers surveyed reported that they already expect to be victims of a security breach at some point, and fully intend to take legal action against the organisation when it happens.

And despite widespread use of techniques to obtain customer feedback, the report suggests that attempts to discern customer attitudes to security do not get much of a response.

“Organisations may think that they have adequate security in place and that their customers are happy with the measures, but most consumers will not be informing them either way – potentially leaving companies unaware of dissatisfaction,” the report concluded.

Using security to secure their loyalty

So don’t leave your customers dissatisfied, braced for the worst, and ready to take legal action against you.

Using the right technology is the key in your journey to secure customer loyalty.

When you’re confident that you’ve got the right tools to keep your customers’ sensitive information safe, you can easily demonstrate that you take their data security very seriously.

Doing so is a surefire way to ease customer doubts, and is an important step in securing their trust in your organisation.

How Premier Contact Point Keeps Customer Data Secure

Premier Contact Point has been creating advanced, secure technology solutions in Australia since 1986. Our expert team has developed and deployed secure cloud solutions across Australia and 18 countries and is fully versed in Contact Centre compliance obligations and technology requirements.  Contact us for full details of how we can help your operations meet compliance requirements.

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