Making the Case for Consent and Preference Management

Type: Whitepapers
Topic: Consent Mgmt

Topic: Preference Mgmt

Establishing the Need for Consent and Preference Management

Consumers around the globe are demanding personalization, privacy, and the power to control the conversation with the brands that serve them. For many CMOs and CTOs, the challenge is not in proving or establishing the need to address privacy, personalization, and increasing demands for interaction. Rather, the challenge lies in establishing the best method for
achieving success.

How should a company proceed? Is the marketing department in charge of engagement? Is customer service in charge of experience? Is IT shared by both groups or managed according to an entirely separate structure and vision? A North Highland survey of 700 senior business leaders found 87 percent agree that “customer experience” is the top strategic priority for driving growth. However, only one-in-three said they felt prepared to take on a customer experience initiative.

Why? The goal is too large, too vague, and involves too many moving parts. Companies know they need to listen to customers and engage them in meaningful, profitable relationships. But they haven’t figured out how to break customer experience or engagement down into actionable pieces. Without a concrete plan, it becomes almost impossible to earn approval from IT, legal, investor relations, or other stakeholders for many worthwhile initiatives. The best starting point for an enterprise is the management of consent and preference data – along with other zero-party data provided directly by the customer. Executed correctly, robust consent and preference management can power the personalization, privacy, and interactivity modern consumers demand.

It’s a tangible project with a specific action plan and set of goals to improve both experience and engagement. The following pages will demonstrate how consent and preference management can be defined to internal decision-makers, framed for budgeting, communicated to collaborating stakeholders and ultimately approved for action.

Defining the Benefits of Consent and Preference Management

The case for consent and preference management is typically organized into two clear categories:

• strengthening compliance with privacy regulations and
• improving customer relationships, increasing customer lifetime ROI.

Each would present a compelling case on its own. But considered together, addressing both with one
solution offers a compelling argument.

Stronger compliance and privacy protection

Regulators and legislators around the globe are working quickly to introduce legislation such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the United States’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), and others, to enhance consumer privacy protections and address widespread consumer concerns about data and identity theft, unwanted communications, and behavior tracking.

For example, the GDPR requires marketers to give strong consideration to obtaining and maintaining strict permissions in order to communicate with any citizen of the EU. Central to the regulation is a high standard for consent and fines as great as 20 million euros or four percent of total worldwide annual revenue, whichever is larger.

The TCPA requires companies to collect consent prior to calling or sending text messages to mobile devices. Fines for sending text messages without first obtaining express written consent range from $500-$1500 per text message sent. With a recent rise in class action lawsuits, these fines can add up quickly, with companies like Jiffy Lube being fined $47 million for their TCPA violations.

CASL requires consent prior to sending commercial electronic messages such as emails and text messages and carries penalties of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million for corporations per violation.

Zero-party data collection represents a critical opportunity to earn consent and protect the right to interact with a consumer. Moreover, appropriate storage and maintenance of such data through an active consent and preferences management program protects its legal authority when challenged.

Improved marketing ROI

By reducing opt-outs and increasing opt-ins, the overall size of the marketable audience grows. With the implementation of a simple opt-down system — a component of a preference management solution accessed through an email unsubscribe link — PossibleNOW customers see an average of 60 and 90 percent fewer opt-outs.

“Businesses crave insight into the context in which consumers are using
their products – and consumers want businesses to deliver contextually
relevant services.” – Fatemah Khatibloo, Forrester Research “
“

In addition to preserving the pool of prospects, the ongoing collection of consent and preference data reveals new opportunities will emerge that marketers can proactively leverage to their advantage. For a clothing retailer, understanding customer insights along with product interest and channel of choice could result in a seasonal swimwear promotion via email instead of an expensive and marginally effective one-size-fits-all brochure or catalog.

Finally, the collection and management of consent and preferences for zero-party data allows CMOs to shift staff time and budget dollars from guesswork to fact-based decision-making. A marketing team that only has access to purchase history and customer shipping addresses trend towards broad, one-size-fits-all campaigns, often with discouraging results. Customer insights data gives the customer a voice in the type of communications they want to receive and empowering niche campaigns that address stated needs at timely intervals.

Presented together, the broad compliance and marketing benefits of consent and preference management
offer a compelling case for consideration. Risk mitigation has become an important part of the CMO job description and the management of zero-party data like customer consent and preferences addresses a number of its critical challenges. It’s also the key to building customer trust, facilitating lasting customer engagement and real-time responsiveness with rich, marketable data that powers campaigns and delivers bottom-line results.

“The typical terms of agreement that we check when we want to use the services of an Internet company invariably give the company the right to redeploy our information for their own benefit. Some companies also give. consumers the right to opt-out of that information-gathering, but it is usually a process that requires some effort. A far better approach would be customers opting in instead of opting out.” – Joe Nocera, The New York Times

Fostering Internal Consensus

Implementation of consent and preference management in an enterprise environment requires a rigorous, multi-party justification process. It’s not uncommon: an enterprise considers a new technology that holds the potential to impact or even transform many of its legacy processes and systems.

In this case, the dynamic is influenced by previous efforts or research into the issue. Any enterprise organizations already has certain customer data management tools in place and have studied or considered its broader implications.

How is the enterprise currently collecting, managing, and distributing customer consent and preference data?

The answer may lie in sales, support, marketing, IT or all of the above. In many cases, siloed departments hold their own data interaction models or rely on limited customer data management tools via an Email Service Provider (ESP), a marketing agency, or other third party. The process must uncover all of the different systems and procedures that should be considered as part of
a consent and preference management solution by understanding what communications are being sent to what customers and why.

What does the enterprise’s leadership think it is doing to collect, maintain, and distribute customer zero-party data, such as customer consents and preferences?

The distance between perception and reality is critical in framing the larger implementation question. Confusion over terminology, departmental authority, what is included as part of zero-party data (in addition to customer consents and preferences), how data collection is deployed, or exposure to risk, if unforeseen by those recommending a zero-party data management initiative, can lead to costly and unnecessary delays.

Who are the necessary partners for implementation of customer consent and preference data management, even on a limited scale?

With a reliable view of existing efforts, internal partnerships for the project should be identified in order to move forward. It will likely include representatives from support, sales, marketing, and IT, alongside a “champion” within the organization who is prepared to introduce the topic from an actionable position.

Key steps for implementing a consent and preference management platform:

• Identify a problem that needs to be solved or opportunity with upside potential
• Establish a project team
• Determine present state and outcome goals
• Prepare rollout plan
• Measure results
• Conduct post mortem and identify areas for improvement
• Report results to management team
• Begin phase II

Conclusion: Moving from Discussion to Action

Here’s an all-too familiar scenario: senior leadership recognizes the need for better, more efficient customer engagement and understands that a sophisticated solution for managing consents, preferences, and other customer zero-party data is a necessary prerequisite to achieving that goal.

Consent and preference management is listed as a specific priority and handed to IT for a feasibility and cost study. The study reveals significant challenges and results in a gloomy report that it is prohibitively expensive, requires an unreasonable timetable, or is deemed impossible given the enterprise’s current infrastructure.

Discouraged by the result, senior leadership shelves the initiative, only to return to it during the next budget/planning cycle. It’s an unfortunate pattern but one that can be broken. The key, in many cases, is creating a smaller goal and letting the consent and preference management initiative prove itself prior to larger investment or broader expansion.

Here are three simple actions (in order of complexity) that can be proposed, piloted, budgeted, and achieved quickly:

1. Offer opt-down functionality in your email marketing: Instead of presenting customers with an all-or-nothing engagement, give them the power to tailor communications to suit their interests. Offering an opt-down option drastically reduces opt-outs and helps marketers focus messaging on topics of interest.
2. Install a website trust and preference center: Create an easy-to-use portal where prospects and customers can create individual profiles, give or revoke their consent to be contacted, select topics of interest, their preferred delivery channels, and pace of communications. Centers of this kind provide customers the ability to provide insights and maintain their preferences as their interests change over time.
3. Expand your consent and preference collection with a limited starter program: The ability to manage customer consents and preferences should be present at every interaction point between brand and customer, such as mobile, social media, in-store, contact center and more. However, these initiatives require approval from many stakeholders and can quickly become bogged down or even abandoned. Identify a specific brand or line of business to use as a starter program to prove ROI and gain momentum before seeking company-wide application.
   

Approaching zero-party data management as a series of actionable steps makes it easier to plan and earn organizational buy-in, beginning with consent and preference management. The challenge of making the case in an enterprise environment can be complex and multi-faceted.

In many ways, it quickly becomes a process of simplification — clear delineation of what it is, why it is
important, and how to begin.

About PossibleNOW

PossibleNOW is the pioneer and leader in customer consent, preference, and regulatory compliance solutions. We leverage our MyPreferences technology, processes, and services to enable relevant, trusted, and compliant customer interactions. Our platform empowers the collection, centralization, and distribution of customer communication consent and preferences across the
enterprise. DNCSolution addresses Do Not Contact regulations such as TCPA, CAN-SPAM and CASL, allowing companies to adhere to DNC requirements, backed by our 100% compliance guarantee.

PossibleNOW’s strategic consultants take a holistic approach, leveraging years of experience when creating strategic roadmaps, planning technology deployments, and designing customer interfaces. PossibleNOW is purpose-built to help large, complex organizations improve customer experiences and loyalty while mitigating compliance risk.