Ideas for capturing and managing customer consent
With the 25th May fast approaching, it’s about time that you start to evaluate your customer consent process. If you haven’t already started to process any customer data, that may need to be handled again, to ensure both that the customer gives consent and is informed about how, why and when their details are used, I’ve included a few ideas for you on that note as well.
A plethora of companies will start working with this, and here are some ideas on how you can stand out from the competition by using video to pop-up layers to perform this in a easy and customer centric way.
Most importantly angle the narrative and story to talk about this from a customer perspective and their benefit, and how you as a company both ensure and honor their privacy and the security of their personal details.
Video
Policies and terms and conditions are quite boring to read and most often people just skip them and tick agree without really knowing what they’ve just agreed to.
Instead of creating yet another text about what you store personal data for, use and why. I would opt for other forms of communication.
A short and informative video with the purpose to in an easy and entertaining tone, explain what you collect about your customers and why. Either it be animation or whatever suits your brand and customer.
Pop-up or temporary layer/notification
If you already have a login area on your website, this is a great opportunity to start collecting and ensuring customer consent in a non invasive way. This is an area you could design a pop-up or any other layer where the customer takes affirmative action on what they agree to in terms of data sharing, usage and any preferences they may have.
Emails – sequence to collect consent from your newsletter list
If you are unsure about the actual consent of for example any newsletter or database you may have. Now is the time to start process those people.
My recommendation is to design a sequence containing different steps and actions for customer consent processing of this particular database or list in various channels. Using the insight I have on those customers I would design the content and sequence from that knowledge. These are the steps I would take for my fictional example of a newsletter list with unknown origin:
1/ Ensure data quality – if there is a way to investigate:
- how old the list or database is
- any indications of the last interaction or activity – when did these customers last open an email etc
2/ Email – Create a short email with the sole purpose to gather consent, the angle being from the customers point of view. How would this benefit them?
3/ Email – once the first email has gone out and a sufficient amount of time has passed, select the people who either did not open or act on your email and create two new types of emails and lists. Targeting the two groups in relevant ways with a second email.
4/ Facebook – custom audience
For the people that did not open the two emails, and are connected to the company website page. I would use Facebook ads to target these using an existing relationship to do so, to pay for advertising with the sole purpose to drive customers to a landing page, using clever creative to get consent. (before the 25th May that is).
5/ Other channels and ways of communication
The last resort on the prerequisite of the customers that I’m targeting are of high value to me, I would investigate other options of getting consent. Could old school printed material suffice? Perhaps a postcard with a short link, to where the customer can leave consent? A text message? Think outside the box. (If these customers are really valuable to me, otherwise I would just delete the list and move on talking to customers that actually want to hear from me)
6/ Saying goodbye and welcoming them back
When I’ve tried all the other options to reach these customers I would inform them in some way, using a relevant channel, presumably email of their details behing removed.
A short checklist of what will happen , the process and why, created in a warm and friendly way with something along the way of that we honour their privacy and comply with the improved laws from the EU concerning storage of personal details.
You are being removed from our systems since you have not given constent to store the details etc, and will now be removed but are most welcome back at any time.
Of course I would add a window of time, from the email is sent out, and a big call to action to leave consent, informing the customer of the time frame, before having the data removed.
Policy and terms and conditions
We can all agree on that these pages are usually a drag, but necessary. Here you will have a competitive advantage if you manage to make these pages more customer centric and friendly. Instead of just using large blocks of text written by a lawyer. Refresh these pages and translate (yes I just used that word) these page into your customers language. Make them easy to access, understand, informative and easy to read and interact with.
Draw inspiration from the customers favourite magazines or websites. Be creative and use “human speak.” (simple language, not layer language).
When you need to renew or update consent
If you need or want to start collecting more data on the customers than specified and informed to the customer then in the original consent process, you need to ask for renewed consent. This applies for each time you want to develop anything further in terms of either how you use the customer data or want to add new functionality.
I would think of it as a campaign in some way and take the customer angle on it and again create a marketing sequence, where I would segment and create communication relevant to the customers. Not everyone is at the stage of one to one marketing, however it will give you an advantage being able to communicate the specific functionality or benefit the customer will enjoy if they update their consent and doing so on larger groups should be easy. If not then you are just adding value to yourself as a company and in today context, how is that affecting your customer and your bottom line? (aka, if its not valuable for the customer, why is it valuable to you as a brand?)
Conclusion
Customers will have an increased power of their personal details and may now be asked quite frequently about updating their consent. This is an opportunity for companies to get an competitive advantage if you manage to figure out a way where the interaction and communication from your brand is effortless and easy. Putting the customer in the very centre of your communication.
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash