How Technology can Integrate Security to Improve Customer Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly changed what it means to provide customer experience services. Many customer experience (CX) trends that would have taken years to develop have taken only months in this environment. For example, the ability to fully engage with customers digitally. With work-from-home mandates, many contact centers find themselves needing to migrate their operations onto the cloud as soon as possible – or fail to provide the quality of customer service that their already digitized competitors are providing.  As more and more businesses are becoming online the security is becoming more essential than before. Hackers constantly seek vulnerabilities in the online platforms to exploit which can cost an organization not only money, but also its reputation and even customers.

The customers are increasingly getting protective over their security and privacy and gaining their trust is becoming critical to the customer experience. Online transactions often require consumers to share personal information. As such, there is a clear correlation between trust, customer satisfaction, and business success. Often, security is viewed as an inhibitor and a hurdle to business, but it actually can be a key differentiator over your competitors.

Let’s have a look at how organizations can integrate security through the adoption of technology in their operations and how it will define the way the organizations will provide an enhanced customer experience.

Adoption of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Model

SASE redefines security for the cloud-based and reduces complexity by replacing a scattered multi-vendor set of on-premise security services with a simpler set of cloud-based ones. These services range from firewalls and secure web gateways to cloud access security brokers, DNS security solutions, and beyond.

With the adoption of SASE organizations will be able to automatically apply security policies on a per-session basis, governed by parameters, including who the user is, which location they're accessing from, and the properties of the device they're using. SASE offers secure access to private applications in public clouds and data centers instead of access at the network level. SASE better enables companies to detect and prevent cloud and web attacks such as cloud phishing, malware, ransomware, and malicious insiders.

Flexible Identity Authentication

Nowadays, passwords appear to be more of a risk than an actual protection layer for the user. Passwords represent the key to secure all digital operations yet have become a huge issue for users who have too many to manage. These passwords are often lost or leaked. Passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) combined with single-sign-on improves security and reduces dramatically the risk.  Organizations can enhance their security posture and improve customer experience with best-of-breed authentication and adaptive access control.

Flexible Identity Authentication protects the resources with a double authentication. To access, customers can generate an OTP using a PIN code and an authenticator: physical token, software, SMS, or grid. This ensures customers frictionless access with a wide range of solutions to fit all needs.

Cyberdefense through Cloud

Cloud systems are at the core of digital innovation. Therefore, there is a need for organizations to prepare, secure and manage their secure journey to the cloud. Adoption of a technology that strengthens Cyberdefense helps organizations to secure access to their Cloud and container environments with a comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio. Cyberdefense-based technology allows organizations to monitor, detect and respond to real threats across multi and hybrid-cloud environments. It continuously improves the incident response processes to incorporate the shared responsibilities of an organization's Cloud and third-party supplier ecosystem.

Ensure Data security and Sovereignty

Organizations should adopt a cloud service that not only provides data security but also follows local Government regulations. For example, regulations in India do not allow customer data such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and call recordings to go outside the country, especially for the Financial Services and Public sectors. So, one should choose a cloud service that stores all customer data securely within India. The cloud service should include HTTPS and TLS to secure all connections bidirectionally with AES.

Flexible Applications Access

Owing to the current pandemic, the offices can be anywhere now. There is a need for a secure remote connection that works remotely, from home or while traveling, securely and simply. Adoption of a  Flexible Applications Access technology will allow simple and secure remote access to an organization's Information System. It uses an encrypted tunnel and allows restricted access to certain resources through a web portal. Users are authenticated and can access only authorized data with their computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Role of Software-defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs)

SD-WANs give organizations the flexibility they need to adapt traffic routes and network services. In traditional enterprise networks, companies pass cloud application traffic from remote users through their own security appliances in a hub-and-spoke model. This creates a bottleneck and introduces performance issues. Putting security functions in a nearby SD-WAN PoP gives remote users direct access to cloud services. The enterprise still gets the identity-centric protection it needs.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is absolutely vital for contact center services to thrive in a COVID-19 environment. Security adoption for enhancing customer experience will be the catalyst for such transformations. This will give organizations the agility and flexibility to grow with their changing customer needs. By being at the forefront of the latest technological innovations, organizations will be able to not only deliver exceptional customer experience, but also predict and exceed customer expectations. The goal is to not merely react to the pandemic but to take this as an opportunity to reinvent, make lasting changes and bring your services to new heights.

~This Article is written by Mr. Bala Mahadevan, CEO, Orange Business Services India