For the most part, the benefits of increased security are obvious. Most notably, increased security allows you to avoid costly disasters and keep your data safe and secure. However, one oft-overlooked benefit of increased security is increased customer confidence. In a day where customers are becoming increasingly wary of having their personal information stolen, increased security can often mean the difference between customers choosing your business and customers looking elsewhere.
Why Customers Value Security
In the digital age, purchasing a product or hiring a service most often requires customers to provide a good deal of personal information. This personal information may come in the form of a credit card number entered into a business’s website, or, depending on the business, it may even entail a customer having to provide their social security number. However, the sad reality is that many consumers have been bitten and bitten hard by giving businesses their personal information.
For a recent example, take a look at Equifax – a consumer credit report agency that was breached in 2017. During the breach, hackers managed to steal personal information from 143 million Equifax customers. This included stealing the credit card information from 209,000 Equifax customers. For these customers, the results of the breach ranged from an annoying hassle to financially devastating. Some customers had their income tax returns stolen; others reported fake mortgages being taken out in their name – all because they provided their personal information to a business with sub-par security.
With events such as this taking place more and more often, it’s easy to understand why consumers may be hesitant to provide their personal information to just any business. At a time where entering your personal information into a website could cause you to lose or your income tax return or have a fake mortgage taken out in your name, consumers are starting to prioritize security more than ever before.
How to Increase Customer Confidence
The first step to increase customer confidence that your business will keep their valuable information safe and secure is to do everything it takes to keep that information secure. Thankfully, most of the security measures that keep your own data safe will also keep your customers’ data safe, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.
Start by thoroughly evaluating the current state of your business’s security. In a world where threats are constantly changing from month to month and year to year, knowing whether or not your security software and protocols are up to date can sometimes be a challenge. To overcome this challenge and better understand the current state of your business’s security as well as what can be done to improve it, we recommend you undergo a security assessment.
During a security assessment, IT and security professionals will analyze your business’s security from the ground up, identifying any and all weaknesses that exist and providing you with actionable steps to address them. Undergoing a security assessment is by far the quickest and most efficient way to bring your business’s security up to date and ensure that your network and the data that it stores are as secure as possible.
Of course, having the most secure network in the world is going to do little to improve customer confidence unless you are able to relay that fact to your customers. Thankfully, there are ways to advertise your business’s security to your customers and leave them feeling safe enough to hand over their personal information.
One of the most common and effective ways to advertise the fact that your business is secure is with trust badges. For example, if you are using a specific security software such as McAfee, you will be given access to a McAfee trust badge that you can display on your website. These trust badges let customers know that you are using a high-quality security software that will keep their data safe.
So how well do these trust badges work? Well, one case study involving a Symantec trust badge showed that Blue Fountain Media saw a 42% increase in sales after they put the Symantec trust badge up on their website. Meanwhile, another case study showed that Zamberg.com saw an 11% increase in conversion rate and a 23% increase in value per transaction after they implemented the Comodo trust badge.
In addition to trust badges, another way to let your customers know that you are keeping their information safe is to simply tell them about it. If you undergo a security assessment or implement a newer, more effective security software, write a blog post or a few social media updates about the process and how it is going to keep their information more safe and secure.
In short, simply making your business more secure then taking the time to let your customers know about it is a proven way to increase customer confidence and boost your sales.
Conclusion
Businesses bend over backward to bring in new customers. However, these days, one factor that consumers are starting to value more and more in the businesses they choose is security.
If you would like to improve your business’s security in order to boost customer confidence, we invite you to let us help. We specialize in taking business’s security to a new level of protection through cutting-edge technology and proven processes such as security assessments. To learn more about how we can help your business boost its security, feel free to contact us today.