Customer Information Management is Different

Customer information management is spoken often a number of times in the same breath (and seemingly mistaken) as customer identity management with the identity management use cases of providing authorized access to various digital properties. In truth and practice, it is a lot more functional scenarios than authentication and authorization (which is one important use case, Yes), especially in a B2C scenario.  Customer information should encapsulate many of the following functions, if not all

• Customer registration flow- if and when registration is required. Should include customer registration forms and validations; for instance custom registration forms based on a gender entry. Custom validations could include things such as e-mail verification in the registration flow. A custom registration flow immensely aids the capture of relevant explicit profile data.
• Social sign ins- sign in/register with social media accounts and building of an initial profile from shareable social account data. Using custom forms to build the complete profile based on what data is missing from the shareable social data. Support social sign in for mobile apps on various mobile operating systems as well as web browsers
• Progressive profiling- enriching the explicit profile data based on the customer life cycle and specific events. Pulling in the shareable social media account data as that changes on the social media
• Identity and access management- allowing access to digital properties on authentication. Password properties and rules, forgot password flows and validation, configurable number of visits after which a visitor is forced to register or sign in, session management rules, account lock out et al.
• Social sharing and invitations: seamless sharing from within the authenticated digital property to social media. Extending invitations to social media friends and followers to peruse said digital properties
• Customer interaction view- ability to link to or build a consolidated view of customer interactions with/within the digital properties. Integrate/share/assimilate interaction data from web and mobile analytics, attribution and acquisition, campaign management, In app marketing, data management systems, technologies and platforms
• Data privacy and security- support to data privacy considerations and laws by geography and being able to apply the data privacy considerations by data types
• Other considerations such as localization/internationalization, licensing that allows for the differences between enrolled and net active users, integration/s to enterprise systems such as CRM and customer service et al.

Customer information management imperatives, and especially in a B2C scenario, need to encompass the entire customer journey and hence should be treated such by organizations in the functionality they envision and the technologies they implement