How customers interact with an organisation has a significant impact on brand reputation, growth, revenue, and trust. Users expect straightforward digital journeys on platforms, but they also expect high levels of security.
The same factors are threatened by security breaches or identity fraud. However, security measures can also undermine customer experience if they are complex and clunky.
Computing's latest research into this subject, conducted in partnership with ForgeRock, explores how organisations can maintain secure customer identity and access management (CIAM) without compromising on user experience.
82 per cent of 150 UK survey respondents agree that a good digital customer experience is vital to an organisation's success. The greatest issues faced by IT leaders involved in CIAM strategy or implementation centred on customer acquisition, retention, and protection.
Customers are more likely to engage with services that are convenient, genuine, and bespoke. Signing users into services aids organisational understanding of their clients when data is obtained concerning their likes, dislikes, device preferences, and time-of-day usage.
Personalised, contextual, low-friction experiences made possible by CIAM are attractive to both potential and current customers. They want experiences that promote and enrich such interactions. CIAM that continuously and progressively profiles customers not only protects and authenticates their access but ensures they can pick up where they left off and receive an experience that is tailored to them.
Ensuring a good user journey while simultaneously securely identifying and authenticating online users is a challenge for around 70 per cent of those surveyed.
When asked to rate the success of their CIAM solution out of 10, those that have adopted an advanced CIAM platform rate customer security as 8.8, ROI 8.4, compliance 8.4, and customer experience 8.2, each scoring significantly higher than for organisations without an advanced solution. These findings demonstrate that customer experience and security can both be upheld when advanced CIAM solutions are implemented.
Customer-facing organisations must balance user experience and security while meeting expectations and potential risks. Advanced platforms achieve this and integrating a CIAM environment can help provide optimum security and user experience in a way that helps organisations understand, serve, and secure their customers.
To learn more about Computing's latest research into overcoming CIAM security and user experience challenges, read the full report.
This post is sponsored by ForgeRock
