Ways to take consumer privacy seriously in the time of COVID
Consumer privacy is imperative and Jornaya’s Chief Marketing Officer Rich Smith details what marketers can do to become more TCPA compliant.
Consumer privacy is imperative and Jornaya’s Chief Marketing Officer Rich Smith details what marketers can do to become more TCPA compliant.
Consumer Privacy is more important than ever before. In fact, most consumers (87%) will take their business elsewhere if they feel a company isn’t handling their data responsibly.
All it takes is one data breach or data compliance lawsuit for trust in a brand to be tarnished. In a time when consumers are shopping more online, there are a few best practices that your organization can employ today to make privacy a part of your DNA.
Privacy and compliance aren’t new concepts. The FTC began enforcing one of the first consumer privacy laws, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, in the 1970s.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), passed in 1991, has been a necessary consideration for every marketer, especially when it was amended in 2013.
Since then, we’ve seen rapid changes in technology that are raising new privacy challenges at an accelerating pace. This includes the 2020 enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Several other states are following with new legislation, and a federal law may not be far behind.
Even in the most stable of times, much of the market has trouble keeping up with how best to comply with privacy and compliance regulations.
But, as consumers speak up more and more about privacy, it simply makes good business sense to honor their wishes—or pay a stiff price as they take their business elsewhere or you have to deal with complaints and lawsuits.
Companies can lose tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits by not complying with the regulations.
One of the most well-known TCPA settlements occurred in August 2014, when Capital One (and three collection agencies) agreed to pay more than $75M to end a class action suit on the use of an autodialer to call consumers’ cell phones.
Similarly, failure to comply with the CCPA can result in significant sanctions, with statutory damages between $100 and $750 per record breached.
California courts can, however, increase penalties, depending on the breach. Sanctions can reach $7,500 for intentional violations and $2,500 for unintentional violations.
No organization should pay a penalty that can be avoided.
When the TCPA was amended in 2013, our company developed solutions to help companies with compliance. Beyond just helping them be compliant, our solution was tailored to help brands protect their reputations—with their customers and with their markets at large.
The best practices we employ were established during that time and we’ve evolved them since to be applicable past TCPA.
Working with a network of partners who operate more than 35,000 comparison shopping and lead generation sites, we witness over 400 million consumer purchase journeys monthly.
We protect and honor consumer privacy by not receiving or recording any Personally Identifiable Information (PII). With a network of more than 1,000 partners, we’ve seen fluctuations and in some cases, increases, in year-over-year complaints being made by consumers to brands.
We noticed that the amount of time between the lead being generated and the complaint being made is getting longer, increasing more than 50% from June 2019-June 2020.
So you can expect the increased shopping activity from March and April to have an impact in the form of TCPA complaints in August and September. Given these trends, marketers should ensure best practices to prove they are investing in compliance.
The best advice is to invest in a third-party solution that ensures compliance by documenting proof of consent. Consider these best practices to protect your organization:
Modern marketers need to go beyond just complying with regulations and data protection and security measures. They need to truly honor the consumer’s privacy in order to build complete trust in their brand.
With that trust established, the marketer will have more valuable engagements with consumers, and consumers gain value from well-timed, relevant, and trusted interactions with brands.
Everyone wins!
Rich Smith is CMO of Jornaya, bringing more than 25 years of experience leading marketing strategies and teams to the company. In his most recent role as partner and CMO at Chief Outsiders, the nation’s leading provider of fractional chief marketing officers, Smith worked with companies of all sizes to drive profitability and growth. His long track record of success includes CMO roles at Ditech, AIG Bank, and Recovery Centers of America.