With the rise of the on-demand economy, consumers now have plenty of choices, especially when it comes to digital products. If they don’t find from your company what they’re looking for, they will find it elsewhere. People now expect instant access and personalized, frictionless experience. So having a complex and advanced communication channel that doesn’t serve this purpose won’t be of many benefits to your business. The hundreds of daily brand messages bombarding users do not do any help as well. With such a fierce competition, superior customer experience may be one of the few ways left for companies to stand out and gain loyal customers.

“Customer obsession” is an integral part of this process, and this is what many companies struggle to achieve. To step up the game, attract customers and then turn them to brand advocates and ambassadors, companies need a perfect understanding of their target audience. It is no longer enough to recognize the audience in a single-channel; Companies must understand and analyze every human interaction with their brand through all touchpoints. The seamless and relevant consumer experience is not only for marketing but for the business as a whole.

Gathering data from multiple touchpoints and connecting them to a persistent identity is the foundation of a privacy-safe way for people-based marketing. Tying all gathered user-data facilitate in-depth targeting, measurement and analysis. User-identity will then enable marketers to determine consumer identity across digital channels and allows them to set a customer-centric strategy and build trust with users.

Connecting data points in the digital world are easier said than done. If done right, the user identity graph obtained will become a balance sheet worthy asset that can be monetized. With this competition going on, companies who get it right will thrive, while those who don’t, won’t.

Netflix is a perfect example: with a set of key applications supporting a wide range of devices and formats, the company makes it easy for the user to identify themselves, whether from a mobile device or the TV. Gone are the days when companies relied on just one technology suite. Today, they rely on a broad portfolio of CRM, marketing and security solutions to optimize their operations and protect their customers. The result: they have a complex network of interconnected systems, which requires sufficient information sharing to deliver quality experiences to end-users. Losing a potential customer due to painful user experience is unacceptable for modern business.

Thanks to good identity management, from the creation of an account to the connection, companies can now design tailor-made, dynamic customer journeys based on each user’s level of engagement. These modern solutions can eliminate the need for passwords and usernames, simplifying the first experience with a business.

According to Harvard Business Review, customers with the best experiences spend 140% more than the others. The correlation between experience and customer satisfaction is obvious, but the real challenge is to successfully design systems that offer a seamless engagement for the user, without sacrificing security.

Identity management can, therefore be the common thread that unites systems (CRM, marketing, etc.) and ensures that customers receive the right information at the right time.

You can define client identity and access management as a way to manage authentication and authorization of client identities. It usually involves software or a third-party platform that allows users to register identities and create accounts. At the same time, you manage provisioning, activity and security on the web or mobile service.

The best solutions are capable of securing customers, tackle business processes exactly the way companies need them by providing a full range of functionality:

• Customer registration
• Self-service account management
• Consent and preference management
• Multi-factor authentication

Software allows you to manage based on user attributes to make sure authorized clients have the access they need, and others cannot go where they are not permitted. Technically, solutions are designed to interact with a variety of systems and applications smoothly.

Any business that makes daily connections with customers should already have started implementing a user system. If you are still wondering what modern user identity software can offer your business, here is a list of features that the right identity and customer access management system will provide:

A single view of the customer

Your customer identity solution seamlessly links user authentication and authorization data to other business functions such as customer management, sales, marketing, business intelligence and support services.

Transparent customer experience

It offer frictionless access methods such as password-less access which make the customer experience quick and easy, thus encouraging them to come back and explore more of your digital services.

Advanced security features

It allows you to facilitate the process of registration and will enable the self-provision of services to the customer as well as the access levels and the access duration granted. More importantly, any user identity software must be able to quickly and efficiently identify where there may be problems or attacks. It should dynamically adapt real-time security requirements in response to situational risk factors.

Confidentiality and regulatory compliance

It must provide customers with insights and control over what data you hold, how it’s used and where it’s shared according to European regulations.