Commentary
Redefining the consumer experience via digital identity
Linda Touch, global senior director at Equifax, explains why federated digital identity — linking a consumer's digital identity and the attributes, which are stored across multiple, unrelated identity management systems — will become the new normal.
January 9, 2019
By Linda Touch,global senior director, Equifax
Savvy retailers are relying on consumer data more than ever to make strategic decisions on everything from store location to customer communications. And while consumers are loosening up the reigns on their personal information for customized experiences, there is still this dichotomy between offering consumers convenience and data security that retailers must reconcile.
Aside from ensuring consumers can shop via any channel, retailers now have another layer of complexity added to the consumer experience: keeping consumers' data and information secure.
New channels, payment methods should mean new security processes
As omnichannel continues to be a priority for retailers and consumers alike, mobile's role in delivering that experience is on the rise. According to PWC's Global Consumer Insights Survey, mobile commerce more than doubled, from 7 percent to 17 percent this year.
Unfortunately, as retailers adapt to provide a more mobile-friendly experience to consumers, fraudsters are adapting too. Retailers must stay one step ahead to protect the consumer experience.
Device signals are one tactic more retailers should consider utilizing to aide in consumer verification. Say for example, a consumer uses their mobile device to browse or shop, and they go to either a mobile app or a mobile-enabled website, the very first thing a retailer could do is scan the device information that's hitting their website or app to confirm that the device is valid. Using device signals, retailers can get insight into whether the device is active and belongs to a real consumer. Advanced consumer identity and authentication services automatically link consumer device information to carrier data and prefill the ID information.
The more information the better
While this may sound counterintuitive to digital safety, as card not present fraud grows in step with e-commerce, the more information retailers have about their customers, the safer the customer will be because retailers have more data to verify their identity. Retailers should prompt customers — in a non-disruptive way — to create an online profile and store their information at checkout. Some retailers do this successfully through offering loyalty rewards with the completion of online profiles.
Consider what Amazon has done with its Amazon Prime offering. To become an Amazon Prime member, consumers must create a digital identity with the brand and store their personal information before they receive the perks. Consumers are willing to house their payment details and shipping information among other data with Amazon in return for convenience and bonus rewards.
What consumers don't see is the back-end security Amazon has in place to verify and validate user information. For example, Amazon uses an address verification service which looks at any address that gets put into a profile to assess if it's a real location associated with the consumer.
While advantageous from a security standpoint, this also helps retailers create a frictionless mobile checkout experience too. With less data to enter at each point of purchase, there are less opportunities for cart abandonment.
The future of retail and consumer digital identity
The sentiment from both consumers and retailers is that standard username and password logins should be a thing of the past. As consumer shopping behavior and preference continue to evolve, so too will the ways in which retailers gather data and improve account access.
Federated digital identity — linking a consumer's digital identity and the attributes, which are stored across multiple, unrelated identity management systems — will become the new normal. It achieves the seemingly impossible: balancing consumer convenience with security.
