Hello. Can I have your date of birth and postcode please?
Have you had a phone call like that recently? What do you do when a total stranger calls you from an untraceable number and politely asks for the key identifiers that could unlock your utility company records, credit cards or bank’s call centre records?
Personal data has become the battleground for crime. Identity theft and data access are the focus of crime in the digital economy. There are data trails we all leave behind in everything we do and a small number of specific data keys that unlock our identity to organisations holding everything from our medical records to our Linked-In contacts. This is the world you and I live in, so why do so many brands fail to create business processes that reflect today’s culture?
The answer is that in making life easy for the brand, they’ve forgotten the needs of the customer. Call their customers and making ID check from an outbound call centre is poor practice and fundamentally irresponsible. It sets a dangerous precedent and encourages people to expose themselves to the risk of fraud.
Some businesses – like Barclays and Natwest – understand this and have created smarter approaches. Many businesses have simply tasked faceless call centres with large scale outbound customer call lists for anything from sales to account management.
ID checks should only be on inbound calls where the caller is certain of the identity of the business checking their identity. Outbound call centre ID checks create a culture where you may as well have your mother’s maiden name and bank PIN hard coded into your Wall on Facebook.
Just a little thought and there’s a simple solution: Use an outbound call to simply tell the customer there’s a need for them to call the company. Give clarity about the reason, but underscore that for privacy reasons the customer has to call back rather than give their identity keys to the caller.
The Mumbai call centre for the Three mobile network is just the latest brand to have gotten this wrong: a perfect example of bad practice, albeit politely executed. If that’s their attitude to privacy - from the part of their business I can see - then what else isn’t in place behind the scenes? Large brands can be smarter than this, but digital strategists need to be broader in their view of their customers’ journeys. Three lost a customer today; I suspect they’ll lose many more.
Danny has been coaching firms in digital marketing for over 15 years. More than 45,000 people have attended his talks and courses in over 30 countries. He set up and ran the UK and European IAB trade associations for almost 10 years, was the pioneering publisher of Telegraph.co.uk, held the Vice Presidency of NBC’s European internet business, and has been a government policy advisor in the UK. He is chairman of the Digital Training Academy that coaches marketing teams to improve their ROI and founder of the Digital Strategy Consulting practice that creates internet marketing strategies for brands. He is a Commissioner at the digital marketing regulator in the UK, and the publisher of Netimperative and Digital Intelligence. He now coaches management teams, helping them accelerate their businesses and transform their organizations. Contact him on Danny@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com or http://uk.linkedin.com/in/dannymeadowsklue