Secure cloud payment solutions provider PCI Pal has published a new whitepaper looking at the interplay between cybersecurity and customer experience.
Aimed at compliance and finance, contact centre, and customer experience professionals, the report, entitled Payments: The Future of Security and CX, looks at how data breaches impact customer confidence and brand loyalty. Also covered are current Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements ahead of the launch of PCI DSS 4.0 later this year, the risks of non-compliance, the impact of the pandemic on digital transformation, and the intersection of customer experience and payment ecosystems.
Geoff Forsyth, CISO at PCI Pal said: “The Payments: The Future of Security and CX whitepaper is designed to provide insights, best practices and guidance to organizations that handle sensitive customer data in their contact centers. Within the paper, a number of industry experts explore the future of payments, compliance, security, IT and cloud-based security, and customer experience within the contact center and wider business communications environments. It is a complex area and we are delighted to publish the paper to offer timely insights to those looking ahead at their payment strategies for 2022 and beyond.”
Security and Loyalty
One of the report’s standout findings was the impact data breaches have on consumer confidence and brand loyalty. Having carried out a series of consumer surveys, PCI Pal found that 26% of British consumers said they would avoid buying from brands following a data breach, and that 40% of mainland European consumers said they would stop spending with a business forever in the event of a hack. Almost two thirds of Americans would avoid a business for “up to several years” following a COVID-19 related hack, meanwhile.
The two areas of customer experience and security are often seen as opposed, with the customer journey typically improved by bringing down barriers and security increased by their raising instead. Overcoming that opposition and achieving seamless experiences that are nevertheless secure and compliant is the focus of the study.
“Organisations need to judge what the new world is going to look like and view this as a real opportunity to make positive and lasting changes,” said Forsyth. “By being innovative and using technology as an enabler, payment security can be achieved in a way that allows merchants to use mobile payment technology and customer engagement channels that they want to use, along with analytics to measure CX.”
