Buyer loyalty applications are promotional instruments that companies use to construct ongoing relationships with prospects. In return, loyalty program members obtain reductions, unique offers, occasional free gadgets, and different perks.
Companies use these applications to encourage current shoppers to proceed spending with their model and to discourage buyer churn (prospects taking their enterprise elsewhere).
When well-executed, loyalty applications are an efficient method of rising an organization and model by way of relationship constructing. They’re additionally a superb indicator of how a buyer engages together with your model.
When poorly executed, loyalty applications can actively hurt a model’s fame. Buyer knowledge safety and privateness ought to, due to this fact, be high priorities.
The #1 buyer privateness and safety concern in loyalty applications
There have been a number of high-profile instances the place loyalty applications have gone flawed, usually due to apps that threaten customers’ privateness. As an example, the Starbucks app. On this article, we’ll check out knowledge breaches and the way to make sure your loyalty program doesn’t make headline information for all of the flawed causes.
Information breaches
Loyalty applications and related digital merchandise acquire and retain a certain quantity of buyer knowledge. Relying on the enterprise, this knowledge could embody e-mail addresses, cellphone numbers, bodily addresses, and bank card particulars.
A knowledge breach is a safety incident leading to confidential and delicate data falling into the flawed fingers, as was the case within the extremely publicized Marriot resort passport quantity breach. Talking to the New York Instances, Kevin Lee, a threat skilled at digital safety agency Sift, famous that rewards applications are “virtually a honey pot for hackers” and infrequently “the trail of least resistance.”
Within the Marriot case, the passport quantity knowledge was unencrypted, which means as soon as the menace actors had gained entry, they have been instantly in a position to make use of the knowledge. Apart from sturdy encryption, there are different issues you are able to do to guard buyer knowledge.
Gather as little knowledge as attainable to guard buyer privateness
A Spendgo report reveals that 76% of U.S. customers want loyalty applications that require solely their identify and cellphone quantity for membership. For those who create a program that collects minimal buyer knowledge, you stand to realize from this pattern whereas minimizing the heightened dangers of retaining different knowledge, equivalent to bank card data.
Be certain that prospects use a very good password
Many purchasers depend on poor password decisions, and they’re usually extra relaxed in relation to loyalty applications than they’d be with different accounts, as an illustration, their banking or e-mail credentials. Requiring a fancy and distinctive password of 12 characters may also help forestall particular person assaults on accounts. These assaults have turn out to be extra frequent over the previous a number of years, as witnessed by the sheer variety of airline loyalty factors being bought on the darkish net.
Rent safety specialists to check your digital loyalty merchandise commonly
Updates to a digital product, modifications to code, and lots of different small tweaks can result in safety points that put your prospects’ knowledge in danger. To keep away from this, rent safety specialists to check your app’s safety and your database methods commonly.
Information breaches discourage prospects from beginning a relationship with a model and erode belief amongst current prospects. Construct your loyalty program on a basis of belief and respect to your prospects’ privateness.
