The main concern of every digital service adopted by organizations is to boost customer services; however, that is declining as most customers are doubtful of what companies do with their data.
Despite most companies promising customer data protection, the global trust in tech from customers is globally declining for every digital service. Based on the rising incidences of cyber fraud, hacking, data misuse, and other cyber-related crimes, the level of trust in every digital system is declining regardless of the uptakes.
Therefore, companies have a greater role in proving to customers that they can trust all the digital transformations they undertake. Although it is a daunting task, it can be achieved through various strategies discussed below.
1. Apply Security to All Data and Systems
Security is at the heart of everything, and this is one of the assurances every customer is interested in. Customers are interested in guaranteeing that their data is secure and exploitation-free. Therefore, the company must have all the protection facilities to protect all the data, including non-sensitive data for the organization.
One of the best strategies to protect customer data is through data authentication and Id verification. This ensures only the right authorities access customer data, i.e., not all employees are allowed to access customer data. Next, authentication protocols and protection strategies such as two-factor authentication, biometrics, and passwords must be enforced to protect access to apps and websites.
For more sensitive information and data like payments, companies should deploy payment hardware security modules to protect all the data and transactions. Additionally, the company must enforce firewalls and other external protection strategies to protect systems from external attacks. External attacks are severe and the most dominant ones, and once the company can guarantee an attack-proof system, trust will be restored over time.
Even the smallest and least significant systems must have security protocols implemented.
Another security protocol to guarantee is migrating all the data to cloud platforms, which are more secure than on-premise systems.
2. Enforce Accountability and Honesty to Customers
Customers are unlikely to trust a company and digital systems and strategies they do not understand and know nothing about. This explains why modern tech is the subject of conspiracy theories like corporations aiming to exploit customers.
Digital and tech doubts are growing due to the company’s unwillingness to explain why they have new tech and its benefits. Another element of transparency and accountability is explaining how the companies use the collected data, who handles it, and what they do with the data.
Another dark area for customers is the lack of information about how data is utilized and why companies are collecting certain types of data from customers. To boost trust, companies need to refocus their efforts on explaining new techs, the use of customer data, etc. This is the basic tenet of data accountability that customers need from the organization.
In case of any past mistakes, i.e., data mishandling, companies must also explain to the customers why and what measures they are correctly enforcing to prevent attacks.
With sufficient explanation, customers are likely to trust a new system and be willing to submit the relevant data to boost the system’s performance. Companies can reduce skepticism and offer the relevant data needed by offering sufficient explanations.
3. Enforcing Trust and Accountability Culture
Culture can transform negative perspectives into positive ones, especially when it relates to the trust between the company and customers. The trust and security culture should be enforced internally and externally. Such measures can be achieved through employee training and retraining to enforce the security and trust culture.
Training, retraining, and employee upgrade is essential for the employees to have all the relevant skills to enforce the trust and security culture.
Another culture to enforce is the accountability of all employees to the customers. All employees must be responsible for customer data, meaning they must learn all the security measures to protect all company data. In case of any issues, they must report suspicions to the organization for instant response to any data threats.
Whenever data hacks occur, the company’s top executives must also be honest enough to explain to data owners what is happening, why it occurred, and what plans are needed to curb it. The information must be detailed and well-communicated to resolve customer doubts. Companies are vulnerable to attack, and that is the reality; however, they should be transparent to their customers and take responsibility in case of attacks.
4. Customer Involvement in Digitization
Customers must be part of the company systems’ development, digitalization, data usage, and tech development. Their input is necessary to integrate customer needs and demands into the system to make it customer-centric and to prevent weaknesses and loopholes from exploiting customers, hence sowing doubt.
Whenever customers are part of and involved in digital transformation, they are likely to trust the system as it cares for their needs and expectations. When collecting data on system needs, the greatest focus should be on customers, and a few must be involved in the process to make them trust the new systems and avoid negative doubt about it.
Bottomline
Enforcing digital customer trust and accountability is a must-enforce policy for every company in the digital era. To enforce such policies, the company should prioritize data protection, transparency, accountability, and responsibility as part of the organization’s digital trust culture. Customer involvement in digitalization and data protection should be compulsory to boost various security measures already enforced by the company.
