Using a Smart WiFi system to gather data from your customers is a great way to create effective marketing campaigns and learn about customer demographics. However, your business should not feel entitled to using the valuable and sometimes personal information you gather in the pursuit of better sales outcomes.
Consider the benefits of customer data management, common misuses, and how you can use it to your advantage.
What is Customer Data?
The easiest way to define customer data is the demographic, social, or personal information obtained and stored by a business about its customers.
This can refer to a wide variety of data, and some examples of this information include:
- Age
- Birth date
- Website login information
- The frequency with which they visit your business
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Income
- Location
All this data is incredibly valuable for marketing purposes, but every business must ensure it remains safe while in its possession.
What are the Benefits of Customer Data Management?
Customer Data Management (CDM) refers to the process of gathering and storing customer data with an emphasis on the ethical acquisition of the data as well as responsible storage.
CDM comes with numerous benefits, including:
- Customized marketing campaigns
- The opportunity to up-sell your services and products
- Developing customer loyalty and retention
- Data centralization
- Learning about the customer’s journey and experience
Each of these benefits makes obtaining customer data very tempting, but the information must be properly used and securely stored for the process to be ethical.
How Businesses Misuse Customer Data
Businesses can misuse customer data in a variety of ways. You can avoid ethical and legal problems by ensuring your company does not misuse customer information in any of the following ways:
- Using data for purposes other than those outlined in customer use agreements
- Taking data out of its intended storage environment
- Giving too many workers access to information
- Using personal data for numerous businesses at the same time
- Selling data outright
- Not properly securing customer data
These are just a few of the ways that businesses misuse customer data. These practices have a high cost in terms of customer trust and can even put your business at legal risk.
Misusing customer data has big costs, and your business does not have to pay them. Secure the data by making it need-to-know, requiring security checks, initiating alerts for data access, and making sure you have transparent processes within your business for accessing data.
Use Customer Data to Your Advantage
The data you obtain from customers is highly actionable in most cases. Every bit of information your customers entrust with you can be used to your advantage. Consider some of the best ways to utilize customer data to your advantage.
- Learn which social media your customers prefer and market your business there. You’ll save money and stay on the cutting edge.
- Increase sales by using a more direct, personalized advertising approach. For example, provide existing customers with unique, time-gated coupons to influence sales.
- Provide a better customer experience by delivering and considering customer surveys.
These are three great methods for using customer data to your advantage, but they are hardly the only ways you can reap the rewards of safely keeping and using the information. From developing new marketing directions to bringing in new customers entirely, this information is highly valuable.
Are you ready to start improving your customer data use? Easy-Fi is here to help. Easy-Fi’s platform can assist in collecting valuable consumer data through your guest WiFi network.
Collect data seamlessly across guest WiFi, social media, email marketing, and more. Get better use out of your customer data with Easy-Fi’s Smart Email and Coupon Builder. Protect your data by providing a separate guest WiFi hotspot that keeps your back-of-the-house network away from potential hacks.
