Key Points:

• Benefits of keeping customer data secure include enhancing your industry reputation, building customer loyalty and trust, demonstrating strong ethics, complying with regulations (e.g., GDPR), and gaining a competitive edge.
• Risks associated with data breaches include exposing sensitive customer data, company secrets, eroding trust, damaging brand reputation, and potential financial losses.
• To increase confidence in data security for customers, companies can get certified by relevant authorities, choose privacy-focused suppliers, adopt a "less data, the better" policy, implement a zero-trust approach, and use password management software to strengthen security practices.

Your customers are trusting you with their data, day in and day out. So, how are you going to make sure that no one else gets their hands on it? 

What are the benefits of keeping your data secure? 

Keeping your customer data secure can increase your reputation within the industry, with your investors, and with your all-important customers. As a business, you have a duty to protect any sensitive information that comes your way, so you should always take steps to ensure that customer data is secured. 

It can also help you: 

1. Build customer loyalty and trust 

Handing your data over to a company is so much easier than it’s ever been before, but customers are becoming more savvy with 77% of all consumers deeming it important to know how data is collected and used. 

If you can earn their trust by showing that you take it seriously, you will earn loyal customers who can recommend you to their wider circle. 

2. Show you have strong ethics at your core 

Big corporations and organisations can seem to lack a more human element, meaning customers can fall into an ‘us and them’ view, where bigger companies aren’t seen to have a strong moral compass. 

Taking steps to show that you do care about their data can shift their perspective and help you be seen as a company that genuinely wants to help people. 

3. Comply with national and international regulations like GDPR 

It’s more than likely that you’re currently complying with national and international regulations such as GDPR or CCPA. 

If you are, it’s even more imperative that you take care of customer data to avoid hefty fines or lawsuits from official bodies. 

4. Become a more competitive business in the overall landscape

If you can tell customers that you’ve got protections in place to keep their data secure while your competitors are falling behind, you’re more likely to win them over. Even if data isn’t at the centre of what you do, for those who take their data protection seriously, it could be the difference between winning a contract or watching your competitor close it. 

5. Minimise the impact of data breaches and leaks

Securing your customer data is crucial for minimising the impact of data breaches or leaks. By implementing data minimisation tools, and reducing your attack surface, you can mitigate risks caused by bad actors accessing your data. Preventing unauthorised access to customer data ensures sensitive information is kept confidential and secure.

6. Maintain brand reputation

Businesses that don't have a strong security posture in place can lose brand reputation if they are hit by a data breach, and their customer data is not secure. Industry regulations demand that organisations disclose any breach of customer data, so there really is nowhere to hide. Negative publicity can damage a brand's reputation dramatically, and it can take a long time for businesses to rebuild trust with consumers.

7. Cost savings

Unsecured data can be costly if it is breached or leaked. Not only will organisations face hefty penalties from industry authorities if they have breached regulations, but they may also face legal repercussions from government bodies, or customers themselves. Making the initial investment into data security solutions can be beneficial in the long run.

8. Better quality of data

When customer data is secured and controlled, organisations can ensure the information they have on record is accurate. Data security tools help prevent unauthorised modifications, or manipulation of data, maintaining its integrity. Clean and reliable data allows organisations to serve customers better, and make more informed business decisions.

What are the risks of breaches?

Towards the end of 2022, data breaches rose by 70% around the world. And with cybercriminals becoming ever more sophisticated, there are always new threats to think about. 

Data breaches can expose your customer’s sensitive data, company secrets, and more, leaving people vulnerable to having their data stolen and accounts hacked into. 

You have a duty as a business to protect your customers and taking risks with their data could lose their trust, and impact your brand reputation. On top of that, you could be hit by financial losses. In 2022, SHEIN were fined $1.9M for a data breach affecting 39 million customers a few years before. By not declaring this, the company were leaving customers open to hackers. 

What can a company do to increase confidence in data security for customers?  

There are a few ways you can gain your customers confidence when it comes to data security: 

1. Get certified with relevant authorities 

Depending on the countries you’re operating in, getting the approval of authorities like SOC Type 2 or ISO 27001 can make a huge difference in your data security standing. 

When you do get this sort of certification, let your customers know by proudly displaying it on your website or in marketing materials. Having this third-party validation can ensure you earn the trust of new customers.

2. Choose suppliers who focus on privacy-first design 

You should take great care when choosing your suppliers as if they suffer a data breach, it could leave your business vulnerable too. 

Focus on suppliers who have privacy at their heart. For instance, Metomic doesn’t save your data but instead saves references of it, meaning that if we encountered a data breach, your data wouldn’t be affected. You can read more about this in our recent case study with Hatitye Chindove from Zappi. 

3. Operate a ‘the less data, the better’ policy 

Having too much data on your hands, sprawled across multiple SaaS apps can be a challenge. The less you have stored, the less you have to lose. 

Using a data security solution like Metomic can help you reduce the amount of data you’re holding on to, with automatic redaction and retention policies in place. If you can, limiting the amount of data in your possession can really make a difference. 

4. Operate a zero-trust policy

Get the right access controls in place so that sensitive documents are locked down to the wider organisation. The fewer people who are granted access, the fewer chances of data being leaked. 

5. Use password management software

Your employees won’t always create the strongest passwords, and will likely go for ones that they’ve used time and time again. Using password management software like 1Password or Nordpass can be a great solution for building strong passwords that are more difficult to hack. 

How can Metomic help?

Keeping your customer data secure could be extremely beneficial to your business, earning their trust and improving your reputation. 

To see how Metomic could help a business like yours, try our free Google Drive scanner here. We don’t read the contents of your files, and your data is deleted completely after 24 hours.