Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) Solution: The Complete Guide
Customer-centricity is booming in the global digital identity landscape. The business world is now focused on delivering seamless, omnichannel customer interactions, supporting mobile engagements, and offering individualized consumer applications.
As a result, brands must maintain customer data privacy and minimize access risk across ever-increasing digital touchpoints while providing seamless, secure, on-demand services.
To deliver these experiences, organizations must embrace Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM), which protects and secures customer information.
With CIAM, your business can easily manage external identities, user self-service and registration, roles, and access rights. Therefore, companies can improve customer experiences (CX), bolster security, and comply with local and international security and privacy standards. A reliable third-party usually hosts and manages CIAM solutions in a highly flexible and scalable model supporting on-premise, cloud and SaaS deployments that can support hundreds of millions of customers.
Let us discuss in detail about CIAM.
What is Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM)?
Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) uses identity management technologies to manage customer access to multiple services and applications. In addition to protecting user data and managing customer identity, CIAM assists companies with enhanced user experiences.
A CIAM solution has many features, like customer registration, Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication, Multifactor Authentication (MFA), and Passwordless Authentication.
CIAM: How Does It Work?
CIAM typically supports Connectors and APIs are built-in to connect various enterprise applications, systems, and data sources. This way, authentication, directory services, customer registration, and account management can be integrated seamlessly.
CIAM handles authentication when customers visit a website or call, for example (through a password, one-time password (OTP), biometrics, or multiple factors). CIAM also supports external identity providers using different protocols, including SAML, OpenID Connect, OAuth, and FIDO. Customer logins allow for multiple application access, profile management and other account-related tasks.
As a further advantage, CIAM provides Risk-Based Authentication (RBA), sometimes called adaptive authentication. A system can detect risk by looking for indicators, such as a user’s IP address, location parameters, attribute profile, and the time and date of access, and then add additional authentication controls.
By integrating with other digital systems, CIAM ensures that all associated systems have the same information. It can also provide a consistent multi-channel experience and personalize interactions to suit better your customers’ profiles, personas, and behavior.
Core Elements of a CIAM Solution
How can you select a CIAM software provider? A CIAM solution should have the following essential features:
Self-Service Features
A powerful self-service module in your CIAM solution will make identity management more efficient for your customers and support team. If they keep encountering issues that require support, they will become frustrated. Self-Service can be more efficient than relying on your support team to manage large volumes of repetitive tickets.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
With Single-Sign-On (SSO), customers can login to one service and use the login credentials for other applications permitted to accept those credentials. Users logged in to their accounts can access other integrated platforms without logging out. SSO can reduce certain security risks by avoiding the need to login multiple times and remember multiple credentials by saving users time typing multiple usernames and passwords. As a result, SSO is a key feature to look for in a CIAM solution.
Adaptive Risk Management & Multifactor Authentication (MFA)
Adaptive authentication evaluates risk to determine if MFA is required at login. The risk score determines whether access will be granted to the user or if a second layer of authentication is needed. The risk score is calculated based on the time, place, and frequency.
Reporting and Analytics
Your CIAM solution must provide your team with solid reporting and analytics capabilities. It allows you to identify patterns in customer account access and analyze procedures disrupting the user experience (UX). Imagine, for instance, that many customers are failing to confirm their passwords according to your analytics data. If so, this may be due to spam filters flagging your confirmation emails.
Analytics and reporting tools are also helpful for spotting suspicious activities. By doing so, you can prevent fraud and identity theft.
Scalability, Availability and High Performance
It is essential that enterprise solutions can handle a large number of users with the shortest downtime possible.
The Importance Of CIAM For Business Growth
There are more demands on your customers today than ever before. If you fail to meet their priorities, you risk losing customers to your rivals. It is better to avoid this. Here are some ways CIAM can help you grow your business and offer superb customer service.
Engage Customers Digitally in a Scalable, Secure Manner
Providing a good customer experience (CX) and maintaining security should be a priority for businesses. Various digital options allow customers to switch from one solution to another if they are unhappy. The first impression is often the most decisive, so that any negative experience will lower customer loyalty rates for anonymous visitors.
By simplifying the registration process, CIAM can increase the chances of your visitors becoming customers. Taking advantage of this solution could be beneficial to your business. Utilizing CIAM will allow you to understand better and satisfy your unknown customers.
Provide a Unified and Simple Experience
Your CIAM solution must provide customers with an intuitive and frictionless way to login and access their accounts. By implementing multifactor authentication (MFA), CIAM provides greater security than just a username and password. In addition, Cloud Identity Platforms (CIP) leverages social media accounts to verify visits, ensuring that the process is secure and straightforward for consumers. The burdensome login process frustrates 65% of consumers.
Comply with Local and Global Regulations
The government enacts strict data and privacy legislation to protect citizens and consumers. Keeping up with data legislation has become increasingly difficult for businesses as technology evolves. A global business faces even greater challenges because legislation can vary across borders. By implementing a robust CIAM solution, businesses can ensure compliance in all countries where they operate.
Manage User Consent and Preferences
Data privacy relies heavily on consent. It is only possible to gain insight into your customers’ online behavior with their consent about the storage and processing of their data. Customers can explicitly consent to the use of their information through CIAM solutions. Consumers maintain control over their data, building trust with their favorite brands. Alternatively, you can inform consumers of privacy issues and make your businesses more transparent in processing, using, and collecting customer data.
Ensure Secure Customer Logins to Prevent Account Takeovers
Account Takeovers (ATO), cause substantial financial losses to businesses. With CIAM, you can allow your partners to login using their identity credentials while protecting them from identity theft. A single sign-on (SSO) approach and adaptive multifactor authentication (MFA) provide the best protection for digital identities to mitigate fraud and minimize the impact of a data breach.
Make Your Login Experience More Secure and Effortless by Eliminating Passwords
CIAM’s Single Sign-On (SSO) allows visitors to authenticate with their identities. By combining biometrics and a Cloud Identity Platform (CIP), customers and partners can access their accounts effortlessly and securely, eliminating insecure passwords.
The Importance Of CIAM For Business Growth
There are more demands on your customers today than ever before. If you fail to meet their priorities, you risk losing customers to your rivals. It is better to avoid this. Here are some ways CIAM can help you grow your business and offer superb customer service.
Engage Customers Digitally in a Scalable, Secure Manner
Providing a good customer experience (CX) and maintaining security should be a priority for businesses. Various digital options allow customers to switch from one solution to another if they are unhappy. The first impression is often the most decisive, so that any negative experience will lower customer loyalty rates for anonymous visitors.
By simplifying the registration process, CIAM can increase the chances of your visitors becoming customers. Taking advantage of this solution could be beneficial to your business. Utilizing CIAM will allow you to understand better and satisfy your unknown customers.
Provide a Unified and Simple Experience
Your CIAM solution must provide customers with an intuitive and frictionless way to login and access their accounts. By implementing multifactor authentication (MFA), CIAM provides greater security than just a username and password. In addition, Cloud Identity Platforms (CIP) leverages social media accounts to verify visits, ensuring that the process is secure and straightforward for consumers. The burdensome login process frustrates 65% of consumers.
Comply with Local and Global Regulations
The government enacts strict data and privacy legislation to protect citizens and consumers. Keeping up with data legislation has become increasingly difficult for businesses as technology evolves. A global business faces even greater challenges because legislation can vary across borders. By implementing a robust CIAM solution, businesses can ensure compliance in all countries where they operate.
Manage User Consent and Preferences
Data privacy relies heavily on consent. It is only possible to gain insight into your customers’ online behavior with their consent about the storage and processing of their data. Customers can explicitly consent to the use of their information through CIAM solutions. Consumers maintain control over their data, building trust with their favorite brands. Alternatively, you can inform consumers of privacy issues and make your businesses more transparent in processing, using, and collecting customer data.
Ensure Secure Customer Logins to Prevent Account Takeovers
Account Takeovers (ATO), cause substantial financial losses to businesses. With CIAM, you can allow your partners to login using their identity credentials while protecting them from identity theft. A single sign-on (SSO) approach and adaptive multifactor authentication (MFA) provide the best protection for digital identities to mitigate fraud and minimize the impact of a data breach.
Make Your Login Experience More Secure and Effortless by Eliminating Passwords
CIAM’s Single Sign-On (SSO) allows visitors to authenticate with their identities. By combining biometrics and a Cloud Identity Platform (CIP), customers and partners can access their accounts effortlessly and securely, eliminating insecure passwords.
The CIAM Platform: Who Needs It?
Any company that provides its customers with online account access can benefit from CIAM. It is particularly important to use a CIAM solution for the following use cases:
- The banking and financial services industry is subject to regulatory requirements
- Customer identity management intersects with privacy regulations in healthcare
- A satisfying digital experience for the customer is crucial to the success of eCommerce and retail
- The travel and hospitality industry, in which specific industries such as airlines may have regulatory requirements in addition to the need to use CIAM as a best practice to promote business success
- Organizing events
Companies that offer digital services or account information to their customers through an online portal can also benefit from CIAM adoption.
Conclusion
Business priorities include improving the customer experience (CX). A Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) solution can make things run smoothly and securely in such an environment. At IDM Technologies, we provide you with world class holistic solutions that fill gaps of keeping all your customer data protected and away from cybercriminals.
With IDM Technologies, you can unlock the potential of protecting the customer data and boosting the security at a peaker level.
Our CIAM solutions are meant to enable seamless customer journeys without compromising security when put into practice.