Wouter de Wit | Senior Product Manager, Thales
In today's digital-first world, providing customers with trustworthy, hassle-free interactions is critical to business success. A CIAM solution serves as that ‘first door’ between the customer and your online systems, protecting customers’ data while ensuring ease of use. Customers, as a result, feel safe from risks such as online fraud and cyber threats, while your organization provides reassurance that their data is always secure. They also appreciate the seamless transitions and the cohesive experience CIAM technologies provide while businesses establish trust, the foundation of every successful relationship.
Let’s consider the following example.
Banking, finance, and insurance institutions must safeguard consumer information and accounts while providing customers continuous access to their balances and funds. But even though these services may be isolated from one another (for example, a credit card account may be completely separate from the consumer’s bank account), financial institutions want to incentivize loyalty with rewards, which requires holistic insight into every transaction. At the same time, consumers want to manage their money on demand seamlessly and have secure experiences while doing so.
Balance secure and seamless digital experiences
Implementing an effective CIAM solution is a win-win case for both business executives and security leaders. It delivers a robust digital experience that enables frictionless onboarding and offboarding of external identities while ensuring security, privacy, and compliance.
Business executives want to serve their customers well; therefore, they need to know their customers well – their behaviors, preferences, and online habits. Getting to know your customer is essential because companies lose money when transactions and interactions get dropped or interrupted due to bad experiences. On the other hand, a poor experience cannot harm security, but breaches have an immediate financial impact. Finally, as these customers become savvier, their data privacy and control expectations are growing. CIAM becomes the partner in the business’s digital transformation efforts to enhance the customers’ experience in a secure and safe way.
On the other hand, security professionals know that identity-related breaches top the list of known security breach causes. However, identity is no longer about the individual; its meaning has expanded to include the customer’s devices and data. At the same time, increasing privacy regulations make compliance an ever-more-challenging mandate. A fragmented approach to identity verification and customer authentication results runs the risk of unauthorized access and compromise of organizational and consumer data. CIAM can help security teams protect customers’ identities and align security with the business need for increasing the quality of the customers’ total experience.
Protect identities and build trust with your customers
The long-term success of your organization depends on the rapport you can build with customers over time. Today's customers are constantly evaluating their relationship with the brands in their lives, and a few missteps could cause your company to get dumped. On the other hand, if you can consistently impress your customers with personalized, easy-to-access and use service, you can dramatically increase their lifetime value.
CIAM is woven into every stage of the customer’s relationship with your organization:
- Initial contact and anonymous browsing: Consumers prefer to browse services anonymously before they commit to a brand. Implementing a platform that motivates them to engage further is the first step to success.
- Smooth registration: Quick and easy registration that requires minimal information leaves us with that love-at-first-sight feeling. Linking a business profile with their social media account is the preferred way.
- Strong security and authentication: A flexible, secure solution tailored to manage credentials, and update profile attributes and passwords, is an enabler. Trust and security through multiple authentication factors and channels provide a smooth and secure experience that converts passion into loyalty.
- Customer retention: A passwordless secure login method incentivizes users to access the platform more often. Saved profiles and preferences, linked coupons & reward redemptions create a seamless checkout experience. Prompt for credentials only when necessary.
- Transparency and privacy: Consumers want digital options to delete, modify, or download their data. Failing to provide these capabilities creates dissatisfaction.
Invest in a CIAM platform to protect your customers’ identities
If you want to streamline the onboarding and offboarding of your customers without introducing friction and harming productivity, you need to invest in a reputable and trusted CIAM solution to bring direct value to your business and your customers. A CIAM platform empowers you to balance security and usability with an innovative approach that enables frictionless, privacy-protected access for your customers at scale – regardless of their location, device, or application.
You can enable your organization to thrive in a regulated market and always meet local, national, and international data legislation requirements. At the same time, you allow your customers to control their personal data and build trust by enforcing consent and empowering them to manage and configure their preferences.
When it comes to security, a robust CIAM platform will enable you to reduce risks and protect against account takeover, fraud, and harmful cyberattacks with a variety of multi-factor authentication methods, including biometrics, one-time password or mobile login, face recognition or phishing-resistant MFA that leads to seamless customer experience and decreased support costs.
Learn more about delivering one platform for every identity.