Building customer trust in retail’s digital era
Your customers' expectations are evolving. According to a PwC report, nearly 80% of consumers today cite speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service as the most important elements of a positive customer experience. And one in three (32%) say they would walk away from a brand they love if those needs aren’t met.
But what factors are driving these changes, and how can a modern identity and access management solution like Okta help retailers keep up with the demand? Let’s look at the three biggest drivers of digital trust below to find out.
Security
Reassuring customers that their data is secure is the first step towards winning their trust. Yet, as reports of ransomware and other credential-based cyber attacks continue to surge, Okta’s survey with Retail Week found that 58% of customers are still highly conscious about their safety when shopping online. With a further 58% citing the vulnerability of usernames and passwords as a leading cause for concern.
To enable and secure customer authentication, most (52%) organisations now use cloud-based, third-party customer identity and access management (CIAM). By leveraging tools like single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, retailers can eliminate the need for traditional password-based authentication and ensure that every user, network, device, and IP address is thoroughly verified before access is granted.
Simplicity & personalisation
While customers today may be highly conscious about security, they also despise inconvenience and cite both long sign-up forms (48%) and complex password requirements (47%) as their top frustrations. To win their trust and create the simple, highly personalised digital experiences that keep customers coming back, retailers must remove the barriers between sale and purchase and let every user know their business is valued and appreciated.
As well as strengthening the security layer, adding single sign on (SSO) to every consumer-facing app allows customers to access all their online accounts on any device with one-touch or even no-touch simplicity. Each time a user logs in to their accounts using a single, secure, passwordless credential, the right identity provider will also offer retailers tools that monitor login behaviours and build a progressive profile to deliver bespoke login experiences for every customer.
Innovation
It’s no coincidence that the retailers with the best user experience also have the happiest customers. In the digital-first world, investing in innovative cloud technologies that help simplify and secure the customer’s journey as they progress the buying cycle is critical for staying ahead of the competition. Yet, many retailers still struggle to embrace the cloud at scale.
By investing in a modern identity platform like Okta, however, many of these challenges disappear. With more than 7,000 pre-built integrations with both cloud and on-premises apps, retailers can avoid vendor lock-in and quickly harness all the latest innovations to deliver world-class digital experiences for every customer.
How Okta can help
As the world’s number one identity and access management solution, Okta is trusted by more than 15,000 organisations across the globe to secure digital interactions and accelerate innovation across the board. Our elite suite of market-leading identity tools have helped companies like Albertsons, Vinted and many other retailers across EMEA safely grow their business and create the seamless, secure, and highly personalised omnichannel shopping experiences that win customer trust.
To learn more about how Okta can help your organisation build customer trust with identity-first , and to reveal why we’ve been named a Customers’ Choice in the 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer” report for Access Management (AM) four times in a row, contact one of our friendly experts for a quick chat at whatever time is most convenient.