Consumers like their data being used to improve CX

Arecent study has brought out an interesting revelation about Indian c o ns umers’ a t t i t ude t o wards data and its usage to enhance customer experience. The study, done by leading credit information bureau Experian, which brought out the findings as the ‘Experian 2020 Global Identity & Fraud Report’, finds that consumers in general understand the value of information and that 69% of Indian consumers like the changes being made to the customer experience as a result of their data being used.

The study also found that the key factors to meaningful online customer e n g a g e men t are identifying and recognizing consumers periodically. “While Indian businesses ranked the highest at 100% in being confident in their ability to identify customers, 35% customers felt unrecognized by businesses. Additionally, about 54% of businesses in India currently use advanced analytics (a hybrid of supervised/unsupervised machine learning + business rules) for identity authentication and fraud prevention. More sophisticated authentication strategies and advanced fraud detection tools will allow businesses to accurately identify and continually re-recognise their customers, reducing their exposure to risk and ultimately leading to increased trust in such organisations,” a report on the study said.

The study revealed that globally, while 95% of businesses are confident in their ability to identify customers digitally, more than half of consumers across the globe do not feel recognized when engaging with businesses online. Over half of the businesses surveyed are prioritising the creation of targeted products and offers while collecting more personal information to do so. Additionally, 84% of businesses believe if they can better identify customers, then they will more easily spot the fraud

DATA LAKES BECOME DATA SWAMPS

Experian’s 2020 Global Identity and Fraud Report says as data’s value grows so does the risk of fraud. It says consumer adoption of digital channels has generated, and unfortunately exposed, a great deal of data. “Some estimates predict an excess of 79.5 zettabytes (or 79.5 billion terabytes) of generated data by 2025, and that number continues to increase with the growth of connected devices. This figure largely consists of people’s digital exhaust – the data created from their online activity, behaviours and transactions. Part of the promise of ‘big data’ solutions was to make sense of all this digital information, but a failure to fully realise that aim has turned data lakes into data swamps. Businesses seem to know that advanced tools like AI & ML can enable better risk decisions across the customer journey, with 86% considering analytics to be a strategic priority and 84% believing it’s their core strength. But businesses are not alone in recognizing both the growing value of personal data and the growing risk of fraud - consumers are now aware of these twin factors too,” says the study.

The study also finds that businesses are beginning to get a handle on regulatory compliance for privacy and security, so they are shifting their focus to personalized customer experiences. “In fact, over half of the businesses surveyed are prioritising the creation of targeted products and offers, while collecting more personal information to do so. At the same time, most consumers seem to be aware of the changes businesses are making to improve their experiences. However, two thirds of them said security is still the most important factor when deciding to engage a business, followed closely by ease of access to their accounts,” says the study.

HIGHLIGHTS OF FINDINGS

57% businesses are seeing higher losses associated with account opening and account takeover fraud, in the past 12 months.

Over half the businesses are prioritising the creation of targeted products and offers.

66% of consumers understand the value of their personal information to businesses.

88% of consumers want more control over the use of their data.

While 95% of businesses globally claim to have high confidence in their ability to identify and re-recognise their customers at every interaction, the lowest confidence is in the Netherlands with 82%.

Globally, 88% of consumers like the changes being made to the customer experience as a result of their data being used. Consumers in APAC top the list at 89% and Europe (including UK) follows closely behind at 82%.

Businesses often talk about creating the ultimate digital experience for customers, but f ar less about t he interrelationship between security, convenience and personalization. “This has resulted in siloed security measures at major decision points in traditional customer lifecycles - when customers sign up, return and log in, and transact within those accounts. It’s a disconnect that’s perpetuated through equally isolated CRM systems that strive to identify customer preferences, but largely fail to achieve this in cohesive, consistent and appealing ways,” it says.