Make GDPR your game-changer!
How to leverage GDPR as an opportunity to differentiate
As businesses it is easier for us to be skeptical as well as be apprehensive about the whole GDPR saga. Let’s face it, GDPR has created a bucket load of work that we could otherwise would have avoided, although for some it has created new opportunities.
Putting on your customers’ shoes it is easier to see why GDPR adds a distinct sense of Protection in their minds. Regardless of where the customers are based and whether they’re captured by GDPR’s scope, customers want the brands with which they do business with, to respect and treat their data carefully.
1. Make it easy for Customers
Helping customers understand these principles is key to turning this regulation from an administrative burden into an opportunity to increase customer satisfaction with simple, proactive and positive messages on GDPR data privacy and usage. This will reflect in a more positive brand and corporate image, focused on honesty and integrity. With any luck, far fewer individual requests for businesses to forget or erase data, should result from proactively messaging customers, helping drive better customer retention and loyalty in the process.
Customers’ involvement and consent, should put individuals in control, build customer trust and engagement, and enhance organisations’ reputation (The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK). Take measures to explain why retaining certain data will undoubtedly benefit the customer.
2. Adopt a Customer-Centric Approach
In Europe, that sentiment is driven by the new regulation whilst some are rightly approaching this from a consumer behaviour perspective. A personalised and an empathy-oriented approach holds the key to making this a success. As per a recent study conducted by a leading consulting firm, more than 90 percent of consumers are more likely to shop when brands recognise them and make relevant recommendations. It further adds that 80 percent of consumers will willingly share their data if doing so will enable that personalised experience. Customer-Centricity therefore is an integral component of the entire thing.
3. Begin with the Customer Journey
It is key to ensure that the journey customers take on all your channels must make sense. This will help you harness better insights from data, hence designing engagement and processes from a customers’ point of view is crucial. Listen to the voice of the customer, the sentiment and demonstrate empathy. Any customer data that is collected should be relevant at the beginning of the customer life-cycle. This should align well with your customer experience strategy.
4. Build and Restore Trust
The dynamic, ever-changing, multi-channel ways that customers interact with brands means expectations of customers are at an all time high. Today’s customers are much savvier about how their personal data is used, and are unwilling to tick boxes as they used to. Leveraging this, GDPR can provide a framework for creating, increased transparency, leading to a better engagement model, and an essential road-map for building and restoring trust with customers globally. Use this opportunity to differentiate from your competition.
5. Create Personalised Experiences
Understand your customers better, which will lead to creating highly-personalised experiences using big data insights and convert customers into truly loyal customers. After all, the GDPR has not changed the fact that the quality of data a business collects or determines how successfully it will be able to sell, but it has changed how businesses treat customer data. A key opportunity lies here, as regardless of what sector you may be in, you’ll be able to get better at engaging with your customers, drive more conversations and complement your marketing efforts and achieve more ROI.
Please share your views. What was your experience on GDPR as a customer or a business? What are your thoughts on how it can become an opportunity?
Also published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-quick-tips-make-gdpr-your-game-changer-shane-herath/