The collection of personal data has been an occurring concern in the 21st century, especially with the advancement of technology, many internet users have put a lot of consideration in protecting their personal data and constantly improving in methods to prevent data breach and the leak of private data.
But have you ever thought on why companies and businesses collect data in the first place?
Before that, let’s take a look on the 4 types of data that are collected by businesses alike:
1. Personal data: includes personally identifiable information such as social security numbers and gender as well as non personally identifiable information, including your IP address, web browser cookies, and device IDs (which both your laptop and mobile device have).
2. Engagement data: details on how consumers interact with a business’s website, mobile apps, social media pages, emails, paid ads and customer service routes.
3. Behavioral data: transactional details such as purchase histories, product usage information, and qualitative data.
4. Attitudinal data: consumer satisfaction, purchase criteria, product desirability and more.
Data is usually collected by directly asking it from the customers (survey forms etc.) or indirectly tracking with tracking technologies from websites, social media pages etc, sites with high consumer activities.
Now let’s get into why personal data is collected:
1. To Improve Customer Experience
The reviews of products helps a business to determine which product should be recommended to which user, helps modify content in order to better consumer content and engagement.
2. To Improve Marketing Campaigns
This is to help companies understand how consumers are engaging with and responding to their marketing campaigns, and adjust accordingly. This highly predictive use, gives businesses an idea of what consumers want based on what they have already done.
3. A Means of Securing More Sensitive Information
Marrying data from a customer’s interaction with a call center, machine learning algorithms, and tracking technologies that can identify and flag potentially fraudulent attempts to access a customer’s account.
But do you know that you can still provide a personalized experience without collecting personal data?
The answer is through personification.
Personification is the “delivery and optimization of relevant digital experiences based on an individual’s inferred membership in a customer segment and their immediate circumstances rather than their personal identity,” said by Andrew Frank, VP Distinguished Analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders.
Based on Andrew Frank’s research, personification is the idea of using less of the data that GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is focused on (personal identity, etc.), and utilizing the notion of a “persona”, which is essentially an audience segment that has been “de-identified” (with all personally identifiable information removed). This data is based on the audience’s behaviours and interactions with the products or services. This kind of information can prevent privacy intrusion and at the same time can be more telling about what the users’ intent might be at a given time.
Now is the perfect time for your business and company to practice personification and come up with new techniques in order to provide the best user and customer experience for your consumers and your brand.