5 Trending Customer Identity and Access Challenges (and How to Solve Them)

Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solutions are slowly becoming a baseline requirement for many businesses jumping into digitization. It allows them to actively collect, analyze and manage a large amount of data received from their users, which they then use to govern decision-making towards business activities.

Like every innovation, CIAM comes with limitations that affect a company’s performance or ability to adapt to the growing industry identity and access standards. To help you, this article will discuss and give insight into the most common CIAM challenges businesses face and how you can overcome them.

1. The use of passwords

Although passwords are a great start to establishing a form of authentication and security for your platform, they may not be the best solution by today’s standards.

It’s common for people to forget their passcodes between different accounts, especially when they are trying to remember too many simultaneously. As a result, they tend to repeat or use the same codes between different accounts as a workaround. Over 51% of consumers use the same or similarly coded passwords between personal and work accounts. This can result in a high risk of encountering data breaches and account hacking.

Despite companies trying to provide a more secure approach to password creation, it’s simply not enough to provide a higher level of security to their users. As long as passwords are standard in today’s authentication methods, users are still subject to a high risk of account breaches.

CIAM solutions offer a robust approach to your access management and authentication procedures. These platforms generally offer a more seamless authentication process such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Single Sign-On (SSO), biometrics and virtual keys. Utilizing these methods ensures that you provide a higher level of security compared to passwords.

2. Passworldless authentication is still uncommon

As part of implementing more security to identity and access management processes, CIAM solutions provide authentication methods that no longer require passwords. Although such authentications methods offer more security and convenience to their users, not many are able to enjoy and utilize this practice. According to iProov, only 30% of people use biometrics and facial recognition as a mode of authentication for banking, online shopping, etc.

A heightened approach to authentication also poses problems among consumers. Some companies implement too many authentication practices, which subsequently prevent consumers from enjoying a seamless and easy onboarding/login process when interacting with a company’s brand.

Understanding your consumer base can help you identify their needs as a customer. By actively analyzing and understanding your user data, you can curate a tailor-fit and personalized experience and frictionless security measures that ensure data protection.

3. Inconsistent user experience across different channels

Managing digital systems across different platforms, such as mobile and web, can be challenging as it asks for different requirements to ensure functionality. Depending on your main platform of choice, some systems may have a lesser user-friendly experience than others.

According to Google, around 90% of users switch between multiple devices in one day. This would mean that customers face multiple user experiences depending on the device or platform they use. This can cause problems for companies that fail to ensure that all of their platforms online deliver a similar or identical user experience across all devices.

With CIAM, you can utilize cross-channel features to merge and unify your user interface in order to deliver one seamless user experience, regardless of your customers' device or platform.

4. Constant changes with data compliance

Data privacy and compliance laws are constantly changing as the world continues to digitize. Although beneficial for consumers and companies, in the long run, the constant changes in requirements can be an exhausting and troublesome process for many businesses.

Reporting user data and managing user consent is only a few of the many data privacy regulations every business must juggle to stay compliant. Fortunately, CIAM platforms boast a centralized database that allows companies to collate and manage their user data on one platform, allowing you to easily collect and report your user data to relevant government agencies.

Additionally, CIAM incorporates data encryption, access control and consent management features that help you secure full compliance with applicable data privacy laws.

5. Imbalance of user experience and security

Balancing customer experience and security has been a challenge among many CIAM platforms up to this date. It requires a good mix of consumer-base understanding, frictionless authentication, high-level security and usability to fully cater to your customers' needs.

The best CIAM solutions offer an identity Single Source of Truth (SSoT) - a user management feature that helps manage your user base and keep relevant data secure. SSoT is a data organization framework that keeps your consumer data in one place, making data management and security easier to handle compared to having data silos across multiple platforms.

Moreover, CIAM platforms provide customers with a single login window for all of your digital properties. Whether you decide to expand and upgrade your services or add new tools to your platform, users can still access them with just one login.

Maximize CIAM solutions to overcome common access challenges

A company’s digital presence is essential in today’s market as it dictates how consumers behave when interacting with your brand. Applying efficient and seamless processes from your login page to your contact forms is crucial to establishing customer loyalty and a quality customer experience. By using CIAM platforms, you can ensure that you provide the right tools to help your business provide a secure, seamless, convenient and functional platform for your customers.