Your Personal Information Is Not Only For Marketing

Personal information is not only used to sell more or for advertising, but to personalize according to the needs of the Internet user.
Example for an automotive website.

Consumers want to take back the power over their personal information

These days, we talk a lot about privacy, cookies and personal information.

The customer wants to know why the website needs this type of information and how this information can be used. In fact, the customer want to take the power of his personal information.

Intensive canvassing is becoming more and more common on the internet, and often the customer wonders how these scammers got this personal information.

Privacy law: GDPR law

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been launched by the CNIL in 2008 and provides a framework for the protection of European citizens’ data.

After the launch of this law, all websites had to change a lot of things in order to protect privacy of visitors, and all were obliged to add a pop in to ask the customer’s consent and explain why website needs the information. We must be transparent with the consumer. But we see that, at the end, few people read the text about cookies and uses of the cookies and most of the visitors don’t really undertand the why.

The Mass marketing

Due to the mass marketing, the customer no longer trusts the brands.

If you remember 20 years ago, a lot of people used to buy by phone and to share with anonymous the number of their credit cart, phone number and adress, without thinking about a scam or advertising.

After controvers on respect of personal information, Internet users are now afraid to share information. However this information is crucial for some functions.

Digital jobs after privacy law

It’s an upheaval for some digital jobs.

For example: the testing. On websites, we are used to use AB testing tool to see if the customer prefers this design over another one. The aim is to upgrade the customer journey and of course at the end improve sales.

This type of work has to change. With the consent, we can make tests on some websites only on half of the audience (which is the average number of people who have accepted cookies). How can we identify and understand the customer journey without these cookies information? Customer has changed and our jobs too.

This is a real turning point in digital.

Privacy and security

Testing, personalized advertising: we can easily understand that all people don’t want to consent. But with this apprehension, people forget that sometimes personal information is CRUCIAL. Personal information can help you.

Let’s take the example of the sale of automotive products online. Some products are linked to a car, a specific car. We don’t need only the model or brand of the vehicle but also the year and the motorisation of the vehicle. Most of people don’t know this information, that’s why we have to ask the plate number.

But as I explained before, sometimes internet users don’t want to share this type of information, and when the website asks the plate number, some internet users don’t want. But in this case, we don’t talk about advertising, we are talking about security customization for the customer. If the customer orders the wrong products for his car, consequences can be huge: a car breakdown, damage to the engine and so on…

One product (almost) for one car

As an E-merchandiser, my job consists in presenting the right product to the right person, and in the car business it’s even the right vehicle for the person.
We can have thousands of brake pads, but only 3 will fit on a vehicle. So we need the right information to get the right product.

If we don’t have the information, the customer might order the wrong product. As a result, the product may not fit to the vehicle. Whether the customer wants to do it himself or through an auto centre. So in addition to the safety aspect, there will also be dissatisfaction.

Back to the beginning: we are not a marketing agency but a seller

Now, the job is to give consumers back their confidence.

How?

• By being transparent: we must be transparent about our intentions and the purposes for which we will use the customer’s personal data. Trust is the basis for doing our job well.
• By asking the consent: we will not use this information for marketing without the customer’s consent but with this personal information we will be able to present the right product for the right vehicle.
• By putting things into perspective: marketing does not mean scamming, on the contrary, it allows to improve the customer’s journey, to show to customers the products they are interested in and to keep in touch with a brand they like.

To conclude, the new GDPR law is there to protect the customer and push websites to be transparent about the use of the personal information. The law imposes constraints which are beneficial to the customer, but which do not prevent us from improving the customer journey every day.

Reviewed by : Jamal BOUNASSEH, Benjamin BRUNELIERE, Solène Méhaut