IAM 101 Series: What Is CIAM?

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A customer identity and access management solution, or CIAM, is the foundation for building deeper relationships with your customers. Enterprise organizations rely on CIAM to acquire customers faster, deliver a great customer experience, and protect customer data. 

To learn more about how CIAM works, its benefits, and how it can help propel your business forward, keep reading. 

What Is CIAM? 

A customer identity and access management (CIAM) solution provides a smooth onboarding/login process, aids the creation of new accounts and gives access to corporate websites, portals and applications. By allowing people to manage their own accounts and profile settings, organizations inspire stronger customer loyalty and trust while simultaneously delivering a great customer experience. 

A good CIAM solution will help organizations: 

  • Acquire new customers
  • Improve customer experience
  • Comply with regulations 
  • Secure customer data 

The CIAM Advantage   

Organizations are looking for new ways to become more agile in order to drive better customer experiences, and in turn, drive more top-line revenue - CIAM can help. 

Acquire Customers Faster

First impressions matter. CIAM can improve customers’ initial view of the organization by pinpointing friction during the user registration process and quickly removing it. A CIAM solution can help to:

  • Accelerate conversion rates: Minimize your organization's registration abandonments by giving users their choice of registration methods. Users can use standard usernames and passwords or existing login credentials and profiles from Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn. 
  • Improve retention: Build user trust gradually by registering initially with a simple email address and later provide more information to develop a more comprehensive user profile for greater personalization.
  • Increase customer loyalty and trust: Empower users to easily grant and withdraw their consent and permissions, as well as manage their own privacy preferences across multiple digital services. CIAM accelerates conversion rates, improves retention, and increases customer loyalty and trust. 

Deliver Great Customer Experiences

An exceptional experience across all digital channels is the key to customer retention and delivering lifetime value. A CIAM solution enables organizations to: 

Protect Your Customers

A security breach – accompanied by bad press – is the fastest way to lose customers. However, many organizations fear increasing friction when they implement security controls. A CIAM solution helps to provide the right amount of friction and security to: 

  • Secure access experiences: Customers can achieve both security and convenience with a broad range of web and mobile authentication methods, including single sign-on (SSO). By delivering a more seamless authentication experience, organizations can ensure a more secure digital customer experience.   
  • Identity-driven fraud mitigation: Customers expect organizations to not only protect their data, but also protect them from identity-related fraud. A CIAM solution allows organizations to take advantage of third-party anti-fraud, behavioral biometrics, and identity-proofing solutions to ensure their digital transactions are authentic and secure. 
  • Compliance with privacy and consent regulations: Customers trust organizations who protect their data and comply with major national and international data privacy regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Consumer Data Right (CDR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other regulations. A CIAM solution enables organizations to achieve both simultaneously while delivering great customer experiences. 

Selecting The Right CIAM 

There is a lot of choice in the market and finding the right fit for your organization can be challenging. You’ll need to consider Internet scale - does the solution stand up to your demands? If you’re looking for a CIAM solution, we’ve got experts who can help. Learn more about CIAM.