
Data consent: Expectation Vs. Reality
Posted by LeadScale on May 5, 2023
Data consent is a critical concept for effective marketing. It creates customer trust, builds business confidence, and improves your brand’s reputation.
The idea of data consent has been around for decades, but it’s only recently that we’ve seen it become a topic of conversation among consumers and regulators alike. But at LeadScale, we’ve always taken consent seriously. To us, consent is a fundamental human right.
In this blog, we’ll consider some common misconceptions about data consent and what you need to implement an effective data consent process in your business.
The impact of Data Consent
Data consent is a critical part of any data privacy strategy. It’s also one of the most misunderstood topics in the world today.
The reason why this concept is so vital? Because to thrive in today’s marketplace, businesses need access to high-quality information about their customers and prospects. This means collecting information about them, including personal details like names, addresses, and phone numbers. But if people don’t feel comfortable giving up that kind of information, then there will be no way for businesses to grow their customer base beyond friends-and-family networks.
The first step in understanding the impact of data consent and how it affects users is understanding its expectations and realities.
Expectations of Data Consent
Privacy: Users want to be in control of their data and know who is collecting it, why they’re collecting it, and how they’ll use it.
Security: This goes together with privacy; users don’t want their personal information to be misused or stolen by hackers.
Control: Users also want the ability to opt out at any time, so no one can use their data without permission (or at least not without getting permission first).
Transparency: Users need to understand what kind of information is being collected from them as well as how long it will be stored. They want to know who has access to this information, and whether there are any limits on how long that access lasts before deletion occurs automatically. This helps build trust between both parties involved during the interaction process, leading us directly to the next point.
The Reality of Data Consent
You might have heard that people dislike giving away their personal data. But what does this mean for you as a business?
There are many reasons why users don’t want to share their information, including:
Lack of privacy: Users don’t want to share their data because they’re worried about how it will be used and who may access it. They also feel like they don’t have control over their own information when they give it up voluntarily.
Security risks: It’s difficult for companies to keep user information safe from hackers or other malicious actors who could use it against them in some way (e.g., identity theft). This is especially true when multiple parties are involved in collecting and storing data, even more so when those parties aren’t required by law or regulation.
Lack of control: Users often feel powerless when faced with having no choice but giving up their personal information if they want something from another company (Remember Meta’s fine in February?). This can lead them to feel frustrated about having no say over whether someone else always uses their data during every interaction with any given vendor/service provider out there.
LeadScale Engine Data Consent technology
The number of businesses working with personal data that do not care about people’s rights is scary. Most are not run by evil dictators. They have a product to sell. They are sure that a lot of people need their product. The problem is that those people do not know about the product, so have not bought it. Personal data is delicate and sensitive. Working with it must be taken seriously. Although your business may have consent to use that personal data, you are not the owner of it. The user is the owner. You are just the custodian of that data.
If your business wants to collect and use consumers’ personal data, you should explain:
- Who you are?
- What data are you collecting?
- Where will you store and process their data?
- Why do you want the data?
- Precisely how you will use it?
- When will you remove it?
For your brand to build confidence and trust with consumers, you must show that you can recall what each consumer agreed to and when. That is why LeadScale developed the industry leading consent technology. We call it LeadScale Engine Provenance.
Provenance securely stores evidence of consent at the user level. This eliminates using manual solutions, spreadsheets, or global tick boxes in your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to track consent. LeadScale Provenance tracks proof of permission from the first through every moment of capture. As a result, our clients have complete evidence of their customers consent, resulting in total transparency of their data collection.
More about the Engine
LeadScale Engine is a powerful technology. It helps businesses streamline their sales and marketing efforts, generate qualified leads, and ultimately achieve their business goals. The Engine blocks bad records, tracks people from capture to close, checks for Provenance, unites everyone around the right insights, and identifies the gold dust.
By implementing the LeadScale Engine, businesses can optimize their marketing budget, generate valuable inquiries at a lower cost, and make data-backed, value-driven decisions about channels to invest in. With its comprehensive audit trail and independent reports, LeadScale Engine promotes the confidence necessary to build solid business relationships.
Are there any more questions you’d like to ask us? Send us a message, and we will be happy to book a demo and reply to any remaining doubts you still might have.