Why is customer privacy important to my business?

Did you know that more than ⅔ consumers believe that a company’s privacy practices are linked to its trustworthiness, according to a recent US consumer survey? Many say that they won’t buy from a company if they don’t trust how the company will use their data.

Protecting the privacy of your customers is about protecting your business. Trustworthiness and privacy protection go hand in hand, and good privacy protection can be a selling point for your business.

If you want customers to see that you value their privacy, you should have an easy to understand privacy policy that explains how you will collect, use, share, store and protect customer information. You also need clear privacy practices in place so your customers can have confidence that their privacy concerns will be taken seriously.

Protecting customer privacy benefits your business in other ways too. If customers trust your privacy practices, then they are more likely to visit your website, buy your products and services and interact with you. In turn, you will be able to tailor your service offerings and user experience to your customers’ preferences, giving you a competitive edge.

It is important to remember that protecting customer privacy does not have to be complicated or onerous. Everyday practices can go a long way, such as checking what information you are emailing and who you are emailing that information to. Imagine if one of your employees emailed information about an upcoming promotion to all of your customers and made the common privacy mistake of cc’ing instead of bcc’ing them. If a competitor got hold of the email, they would suddenly have the contact details for every single one of your customers and you would be in breach of privacy!

Having a business with a strong privacy culture will ensure that your employees realise the value of protecting privacy and will ensure your customers feel confident that their privacy is protected.

The first step is to make sure that you have an easy to understand privacy policy for your customers and implement good privacy practices within your business.

Use our free Privacy Risk Assessment to see if your privacy policy and practices are up to scratch.

If you don’t have a privacy policy, you can create one below.