Conversational AI is the next frontier for customer service. Indeed, estimations suggest that the chatbot market will grow from $17.17 billion in 2020 to $102.29 billion by 2026.
Numerous factors are fuelling this trend, including an intensifying consumer desire for convenience, lower costs of service, and the ever-increasing ease of implementation.
To this point, a recent Opus Research study even suggested: “If you can play a videogame, you can build a bot.”
However, such ease of implementation must not result in compliance complacency, and unfortunately, these fears are already coming to fruition. Authorities across Europe have issued enormous fines to companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook that have fallen foul of GDPR regulations.
Particularly relevant cases include:
- TIM – the Italian Telecom firm – was fined €27.8 million for improperly storing and processing customer data, risking security breaches.
- Capio St. Göran AB – the Swedish healthcare company – was fined 30 Million Swedish Kroner for failing to protect customer data adequately. As a result, the authorities ordered it to reimagine its entire data processing and storage ecosystem.
As chatbots process customer data, the technology must not become a brand’s weak link. Otherwise, similar fines likely lie in wait for many companies as precedents for breaking GDPR guidelines are beginning to take shape.
Many Chatbots ARE a Data Privacy Risk
GDPR has given customers new powers. They now have the right to be forgotten, while they may also gain access to all their personal data gathered by a company.
Customer data collected by the chatbot is subject to these GDPR requirements (and others) – just like website cookies, online forms, and survey logs.
Yet, unlike these means of data collection, the customer information gathered is much less rigid. Thanks to the interactivity of a chatbot experience, customers may impulsively share personal details – willingly or unwillingly – that they would not share in a structured webform.
Introducing the perils of this tricky phenomenon in a thought-provoking blog, Colleen McCarthy writes:
All of this sets up your company for huge data privacy risks, especially if you collect excessive data that’s then stored in insecure databases. In addition, chatbot data collection may complicate consumers’ right to be forgotten by having their data erased.
The bottom line is that contact centers must consolidate their compliance practice across all customer engagement channels – not just data storage systems – ensuring there are no data leaks. Automated customer conversations must not slip under the radar.
Sure, it sounds tricky, but there is a simple solution: leveraging CX testing software to monitor the flow of customer data.
A Free Test to Ensure GDPR Compliance
Customer Experience (CX) testing platform creates synthetic customer journeys that pass-through contact centre systems, checking for faults and assessing their resiliency. In doing so, they support CX teams in delivering smooth, compliant customer journeys.
Yet, most providers do not account for automated customer conversations. Thankfully, Cyara does.
Cyara Botium scans a chatbot – during testing and after implementation – isolating emerging issues that may fall short of GDPR regulations, alongside other bot performance problems. These findings enable companies to adapt bot design, enhance customer engagement strategies, and ensure compliance.
Achieving these outcomes is surprisingly straightforward. It all starts with a free, no-obligation GDPR compliance test for your chatbot.
How does it work? Well, the Cyara team will walk you through the following four-step process:
- Complete Testing Against the Most Prolific GDPR Issues – Harnessing its technology to scan your chatbot, the Cyara team will disclose the total number of data protection risks it finds within seconds. The chatbot will operate as normal during the testing procedure.
- Detailed Summary Report – After the initial scan, the testing tool creates an automated report, that summarises its findings. You may then schedule time with a Cyara expert to review the results.
- A One-to-One Expert Consultation – The specialist will walk you through the findings, evaluate the uncovered GDPR vulnerabilities, and answer any questions that may arise.
- Business as Usual – After the discussion, companies can take the Cyara expert’s advice and enjoy peace of mind that the chatbot is now GDPR compliant.
Of course, it is critical to remember that meeting GDPR requirements is a minefield, especially as it is a non-prescriptive regulation that presents mere principles for systematic change.
Yet, this structured approach – alongside Cyara’s wealth of expertise – will help businesses begin to navigate this tricky but critical topic.
To discover more and safeguard the data privacy of your chatbots with automated testing, reach out to Cyara and get started with chatbot GDPR testing today.
