Why 2015 is the year of the customer?

If predictions would be true, 2015 is the Year of the Customer. Acknowledging to the increasing amount of data and tools marketers can map the customer journey like never before, and make better decisions in delivering a seamless one-is-to-one experience across multiple touch points. Marketers and security pros are not often mentioned within the same breath, but in the “Year of the Customer”, both need to collaborate to protect customers and secure brand reputation. With fraudulent or suspicious messages make up to 9 percent of emails sent by the world’s biggest brands, these messages threaten to derail the customer experience. Customers who mistakenly engage with a phishing email will not blame the criminals as responsible but instead, blame the brand.

1. Working together in assessing email fraud implications – Marketing and security organizations must work together in creating an email domain governance and policy. This would enable them to audit and track sending domains, implement DMARC records to get more visibility into what email is authenticating, create agreed upon security authentication policies, what email is not and why. Email marketers can still focus on deliverability and the reputation aspect for higher inbox placement rates and security organizations benefit from a better view of sending domains being used and more visibility into how the scammers are impersonating the brand.

2. Working in conjunction in understanding security failures – When an authentication policy would fail, finding the reason why can be a challenge. The partnership between security and marketing should be able to determine if authentication failures are occurring on legitimate email due to a change in sending domain or sending IP address.

3. Connecting the customer dots – Marketing and security can also work together to connect the cost on phishing and spoofing and customer trust. There is a clear cost associated per phone call that security organizations can tie back to cost savings after implementing solutions like DMARC. Additionally, marketing and security can create a self-service model for customers to identify legitimate emails from phishing emails. Not only will the 97% that can’t identify a phishing message benefit, it can further reduce call center traffic and create a seamless customer journey.

More importantly, the customer experience from email is perhaps the most important to protect. Email marketing drives 222% ROI for businesses and is the preferred method for customers to receive information from brands they love. By working together, marketing and security can ensure email is still a trusted channel that performs.