Are You Prioritizing Data Protection and Transparency?

You must have heard about the importance of your business's data transparency and security. But what does it mean, and how can you balance the two successfully? To dig into the details of what makes it so integral to a company’s health and wealth, Cisco’s 2022 Consumer Privacy Survey asked 1,600 adults in 12 countries their thoughts on the subject. The survey found that 81% of them feel that how a company treats personal data reflects its respect for its customers. The survey also found key trends showing the value of using accurate data to drive business decisions.

The survey also found:

• 76% would not buy from a company that they do not trust with their data
• 37% indicated they had indeed switched providers over data privacy practices
• 53% manage their cookie settings from a website before accepting

Developing a culture where data is a top priority is crucial. Businesses that don’t prioritize data or struggle to understand its importance are currently behind. In today’s economy, everyone plays a part, from executives to techs in the field; everyone must understand and believe that customers’ data remains transparent and secure. We’ve addressed the complexity of managing access across multiple systems versus centralized management and cloud versus self-hosting through onsite servers.

Protecting Your Data as Priority #1

Businesses must prioritize handling and protecting customer data if they want to reach and keep customers. For Field Service businesses, data is crucial for decision-making and serving clients, especially since most serve their local communities and customers; safety becomes more personal. From scheduling and routing to accepting payment and tracking personal contact information, there’s a lot for Field Service companies to track and manage securely. With a centralized cloud solution, accessibility tools are built in, as opposed to when you try to manage a server yourself, which is way more complicated. You will also be equipped with automatic backups, security patches, and oversight — all riskier to manage with self-hosting.

While emphasizing data culture won’t resolve all your issues, it will support the transparency needed to build customer trust. Building a strong data culture starts at the top with decision-makers like yourself. So, what institutional ways can your company fortify its efforts toward data transparency?

• Embrace a single source of truth: A cloud-based solution can save you time and money through a completely integrated system, and real-time access to data, communication, collaboration, and business analysis are improved.
• Protect and secure your business data: Schedule regular vulnerability testing on your software, network, and infrastructure, while also automatically backing up your data to keep it safe from fire, theft, or natural disaster. If a business is hacked, protect the data hackers use to steal identities and break trust in a business. Furthermore, vulnerability testing and automatic backups are regular maintenance tasks with cloud hosting, keeping you secure and up-to-date, 24/7.
• Provide data literacy training for your staff: Drive company-wide data understanding so that everyone has a chance to share the same perspective, vocabulary, and basic analytic skills around the role data play in customer loyalty. This way, your staff will be able to help your employees describe data’s importance, so everyone is on the same page.

Data Transparency Best Practices

Securing and utilizing data will help you track trends and manage staffing and profitability. This is where transparency comes in, as the two go hand in hand. Having the right built-in CRM will reduce the time you waste pulling data from various systems to create reports. Easy-to-understand visuals will help you better understand complex data to make intelligent business decisions that help you grow.

The Cisco survey also found that 58% of respondents said they “read and understand privacy notices before accepting them. Fifty-three percent actively manage their cookie preferences, and 45% have a privacy screen on their computer. So with these behaviors in mind, what are the main concerns for those looking to improve their data culture? Salesforce Research surveyed those in the field and found the following trends:

• 91% of businesses are facing consistent barriers, including a lack of in-house skills and a non-tech-savvy staff
• 89% of customers want to see modern technology applied to tech scheduling
• 84% of business buyers expect companies to respond and interact with them in real-time
• 80% of small businesses aren’t taking full advantage of digital tools such as data analytics
  
• Only 19% of SMBs strongly agree that their company has a well-defined digital business strategy

As you can see, data security is pretty serious stuff, and it’s on the minds of businesses just like yours across the country. You’re not alone in wanting to strengthen your company’s data protection and transparency. These findings supported the idea that a failure to start a digital transformation journey leaves your field service operation open to risks. The main challenge is between balancing transparency and protection. This boils down to having accessible data that’s protected while still having a centralized data solution and managed access.

The key to both is finding the right platform for your office technology company that does everything in an all-in-one solution. Many businesses find themselves stuck juggling four or five different platforms, or more, at the same time. This creates chaos on every level of your business, leaving team members wondering what data is accurate and current. The right solution will help you connect with your customers and leads, match technicians with jobs, and close more business, all while keeping every piece of data secure. By storing all your information in one place, you can reduce manual data entry and the mistakes that come with it. As the numbers show from across our nation, your customer’s data is too important not to make it a top priority.