Customer Experience in the Age of GDPR: Privacy vs. Personalization

Moving beyond GDPR, privacy requirements will actually help to drive better customer experience as organizations will only be able to use relevant and up to date information to individualize customer experience. It will also require them to explain how individualization is made possible, and sell the value of it, creating better customer relationships based on transparency and trust.

Compliance essentially boils down to organizations needing to gain a better understanding of what data they hold, why they hold it, how they have gained permission to hold it and with whom they are sharing it, and then to make sure customers understand that.

Also Read: What Does GDPR Mean For Martech?

What’s next after GDPR?

Like all legislation, GDPR will, of course, have an expiration date. The unprecedented growth of technology experienced in the last decade has already begun to raise pressing legal, ethical and social issues, and this is only set to continue as technology continues to advance.

For the time being GDPR will serve a tool in moving towards the right direction, that is, maintaining and growing trust among customers, employees, and users, but in time it will need to be updated as society and technology move on in ways that we can only imagine.

Brexit

In all honesty, I don’t believe there is as much uncertainty as some have claimed, and I think we really need to move away from the panic-stricken narrative surrounding GDPR. The new regulation is going to come into effect on May 25, and will continue to apply to any UK organization that wishes to do business with the EU, regardless of what happens with Brexit.

Within the UK there will also be rules in place that are considered equivalent, in terms of data protection requirements, so in summary UK businesses will have both the GDPR and any national amendments to consider, which in practice is pretty much the same situation as for any European business.

Also Read: How Brands and Agencies are Affected by GDPR

Data is needed to provide the personalization that people demand

Absolutely, and we will also have better-informed customers as a result. The intention of the rules is not to prevent the use of data, rather it is to create more transparency. One of the biggest failures of ‘big data’ is that it encouraged the harvesting of huge amounts of data without necessarily asking why it was needed and how it was going to be used.

GDPR will break this cycle, turning big data into smart data as organizations are required to ask themselves why they want it and what they are planning on using it for. Experience has shown that individuals are more than happy to surrender their data, so long as they are confident that it is going to be used in an intelligent way, that will ultimately make their lives easier.

Also Read: GDPR Will Open the Door for Data Transparency

Coping with GDPR

Essentially, businesses will have to be prepared to answer tough questions and deal with inspections. They should be prepared to answer questions about their data processing activities, compliance programs and plans on how to rectify any current non-compliance. They also need effective routines in place to be able to handle reporting requirements – are you prepared to assess and report incidents within 72 hours?

Also Read: GDPR is the Best Thing to Happen to Personalization

Don’t Delete Your Datasets

The intention of GDPR is not to stop data processing. Individuals still want great services and relevant offers, for that, personal data processing is necessary. What companies need to make sure is that individuals know how their data is used, and that they’re OK with it.

You need a clear purpose for having personal data in the first place, it needs to be lawful, and you need to delete the data when you no longer need it for that purpose. It should be remembered that much of what we find in GDPR we already have in existing data protection laws. If you have complied with current rules, the chances are good that you can continue your processing activities.

Also Read: Defusing GDPR Landmines Before It’s Too Late