Protecting first-party data enhances your relationships with customers

Customer-centricity is at the heart of brand relationships.

Today, companies must take a customer-first approach to their outreach, marketing, customer service and every other component of the business relationship. Customers today want closer relationships.
Customers want to feel that brands are connecting with them on a personal level and that their needs and existing relationships are known and understood.

For brands, this creates an extraordinary opportunity. By knowing customers well and reflecting their relationships in every potential engagement, companies can deepen lifelong value. Customers who value their relationships with brands and feel valued are more likely to do more business with a brand.

They’re also more likely to refer others and leave positive reviews and feedback. In short, customer-centricity is the only smart approach.

The role of data in customer-centricity

To build positive relationships with customers, brands need to capture, store and use data that’s relevant. When a customer logs on to a website or requests help, the brand must make available the relevant information.

Yet at the same time, customers deeply value privacy. They expect that brands use data ethically and that their data are protected. Customers want to know that data are handled with the utmost care. They also are fiercely protective of what is shared and how it is used.

The crux of data and expectations presents a conundrum for brands today. Customers expect that brands know them and how they have interacted in the past. But the knowledge comes from the data collected by brands about those customers.

Data security is the way brands can maintain a trusting relationship with customers. With sound data policies in place and transparency about what data are collected and used, brands can elevate their relationships while establishing trust.

Data governance policies needed

Data governance is the process and the policies used to protect data. Data governance guidelines broadly define how a company will manage all aspects of consumer data. The core tenets of a data governance policy are:

• Availability
• Integrity
• Security
• Usability

A data governance framework creates a single set of rules used to collect, store and use data. The framework is the foundation of how data is thought about and protected within a business.
Data governance frameworks are powerful. They can and should be used across the organization and guide how data are collected, used, managed, accessed and reported upon.
Data governance frameworks shape multiple facets of your organization’s relationships with data, including:

• How workflows are designed and used
• The training provided to staff about proper data usage and security
• The processes used to manage data, including monitoring, sharing, tracking and analyzing
• The roadmap for data strategy that provides a high-level guide for requirements and policy decisions
• Policies that dictate data management, sharing, use, storage and regulatory coordination and reporting
• Standards and rules for how data are accessed, by whom and for what reasons
• Security guidelines that shape how data are protected and what tools and reporting are used to monitor that security framework
• Communications guidelines that inform users and customers about data being collected, used and shared
• Metrics and measures used to assess the business impact of data governance and determine success towards governance goals

This wide-ranging governance framework helps companies create a data mindset that will permeate the organization and its approach to data.

Protecting first-party data for consumers and brands

Why is data governance so important? Because it establishes the organization’s value proposition when it comes to data.

Today, increased regulatory scrutiny has forced companies to shift their approach to data. Second- and third-party data acquired from partners or separate entities is increasingly under scrutiny.

Consider, for example, Google’s decision to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, following in the footsteps of other browsers. The loss of this data is forcing brands to reevaluate the importance of first-party data, that which comes directly from consumers.

As companies collect and use first-party data more, they need to ensure that the valuable information they maintain is kept protected. By having clear policies around sensitive data collection issues, such as opt-in triggers for data collection, and transparency around use, companies can gain far more trust than using opaque methods customers have come to question.

No matter what data you’re collecting – survey information, membership data, direct-chat information, feedback details or basic CRM data – protection is the key to trust.

Be sure in a privacy-first world that you’re sharing with customers what data you collect, how you collect it, how you protect it and how you use it. Also be sure that you remain compliant with all core data protection mandates, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and state-based consumer protection rules, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Data governance made simple with Lytics

A smart approach to data security can help your brand transcend the new customer mindset and gain critical market share and trust. Try Lytics free to learn how a powerful CDP can help.