PactSafe’s Ashley Walsh explains The Future of Data in Contract Acceptance
The customer experience in the B2C world is constantly evolving.
Consider how you ordered food a few years ago. You would dig up a menu from the junk drawer, dial the number on your landline, and cross your fingers, hoping someone would answer the phone. Once you got through that, you had no real idea when the food would actually be delivered. Today, you grab your phone, open an app, customize your order, pay, leave a tip (I hope) and then track your order from the restaurant to your door. Companies like Uber Eats are mastering the food delivery industry with more than 8.5 million monthly users.
Consumers value a good experience. Disruptive mobile apps like DoorDash are delivering faster, effortless and reliable experiences that beat their industry counterparts. This is causing unprecedented growth in this on-demand economy, as evidenced by the massive IPOs from companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Grab. Businesses like these are striving for high-velocity contract acceptance – and it is working.Â
The risk
Access to personal data is a core requirement for these companies to succeed. But this upgrade in to-your-door customer experience comes with an increase in privacy risks. Not to mention, today’s consumers are becoming more and more aware of their privacy rights. Legislative initiatives like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reflect the renewed global focus on privacy. The efforts are stateside too with legislation like the California Consumer Privacy Act.
The legal landscape of data privacy is certainly in flux, as penalties are growing steep. A violation of GDPR can result in fines of up to four percent of annual revenue.
The risks for innovative, known brands reaching consumers at a massive scale are even greater. These brands are more likely to receive inquiries from regulators, which can result in massive reputational damages if the inquiry goes poorly. The larger tech companies are being looked at first to make an example of them, and we have already seen big names like Facebook showcase how damaging a privacy faux pas can be to a large organization.
What to do?
As contract acceptance evolves with new customer expectations and focuses on data protection, how do you protect your business while creating a repeatable, scalable consent experience? The answer is simple: create an in-app data privacy center and consent management experience. You need something as flexible and effortless for users as the rest of the mobile app. Consumers want quality experience and transparent control over their personal information. You can satisfy their desires by building an in-app privacy data center that aligns with the rest of their in-app experience.
How to start?
To start building an in-app privacy data center, identify the collection points that make sense. Initial consents need to be presented in a way that informs the user in simple terms on how their data is being used. The key is to give them the ability to opt-in or opt-out. Remember to be clear, concise and articulate a real reason why they will benefit from giving you their data.
A clickwrap agreement is the best way to execute these initial consents. As you begin to develop your privacy center, you are going to have to evaluate consent management tools. When doing so, the UI elements that a given platform provides for integration into your app don’t matter much. Any good enterprise wants to style their in-app privacy data center to match their brand. Pre-built plug-ins will not do the trick, especially as you try to scale them.
Finding a consent management provider
Flashy elements can grab your eye in a software demo, but it is worthwhile to invest time into building your own consent interface for your data privacy center. This is especially true with mobile apps. Pre-built plug-ins typically do not play nice with iOS. This front-end work will benefit your team in the long run when it comes to scalability, stability and a better experience.
There are three key things to look for when finding a consent management solution: back-end integrations, record-keeping and API scalability. Here are five quick questions to ask your potential provider to ensure you get the right one:
- What are your throughput and uptime rates?
- How many transactions do you power each day?
- Is your solution prepared for failovers?
- How do you ensure conversions are not held up in case of an outage?
- Is a PDF record created for every consent action?
Take time to develop a roadmap of how your in-app data privacy center will talk to other relevant business systems. For instance, if a user rejects your request to track location data and your consent management solution’s API isn’t actually disabling it, you could find yourself in a compromising position.
Standardized, high-velocity contract acceptance is increasingly becoming a larger part of B2C businesses. The need for clickthrough agreements and contract acceptance, coupled with rising customer experience expectations, calls for a great user interface for their consent management. To stay relevant, businesses need a data privacy center and consent management provider that can scale with their exponential growth and gives customers the experience they have grown to expect.
