4 ways to keep users happy and private

The need for data security has become ever more urgent as 2015 has, unfortunately, brought forth a plethora of data breaches.

Data breaches can disable any company – big or small. But in the end, the ones that really lose are the customers. So what’s the best method for preventing fraud and security breaches from infiltrating your services and compromising your reputation?

Nobody wants to be the victim of fraud or unwelcomed spam, and no app or service provider wants to harbor a spammer or scammer. As a B2C company, it’s not just a question of liability or looking out for your customer’s best interest; your reputation is at risk if people think the business letting this happen on their site.

Consumers concerns center around the unauthorized release of personal data – private information, files, images, emails. These worries aren’t unwarranted, and it’s the organization’s responsibility to avoid security breaches.

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Nexmo, an expert in Cloud Communication APIs, has made security its mission. The best policies in the world won’t protect your customers if your network and resources are at risks for preventable attacks. This is why Nexmo subscribes to practices far beyond those of government agency recommendations.

Whether you’re integrating to a Cloud API or relying on two-factor authentication to keep bots at bay, 70,000 companies trust Nexmo with their communications. Here are some reasons your company should, too.

Protect what’s given to you

If you’re holding onto information about your customers, you need to keep it secure. Integrating another company into the fold shouldn’t dictate if your bottom line is safe.

Swivel Secure, a world-class cyber security solutions company, added Nexmo services in order to meet a wider range of customer needs and expand quickly, easily and consistently into new geographic regions.

“As a provider of security services,” Swivel Secure CTO Chris Russell says, “it’s our job to ensure that our clients’ assets are protected. We need to partner with companies that can help us deliver on that security promise — so we’re demanding, and our expectations are exacting. When it comes to security, availability and service reliability, we have great confidence in Nexmo.”

Sometimes people suck

Property management service provider, iManageRent, discovered that one of the apartments listed was not actually for rent, but not before the would-be renter discovered the scam, the security deposit and the “landlord” were long gone.

“If iManageRent is seen as a haven for scammers, our reputation is shot,” says Victor Volchek, Technical Lead at iManageRent. “People won’t use our services if they don’t feel they’re safe. So, it’s in our own best interest to ensure that we protect the interests of our users.”

The company tried using image and text-based CAPTCHAs to keep the bots at bay, but it became clear that real people were behind the majority of the fake ads. They needed a better system. Within a month of integrating Nexmo Verify, scammers stopped trying to register accounts on iManageRent and real estate scams involving bogus property rentals has been eliminated.

Ensure users are who they say they are

To decrease the potential for security issues, a great solution is consistently verifying phone numbers at every stage of the customer lifecycle, including account creation, authenticating transactions and ongoing customer engagement activities. With more than six billion mobile phone numbers registered worldwide, the mobile phone number is becoming the ultimate way to verify user identity.

Reel Messenger, a video-messenger app, uses Nexmo’s Verify program to ensure its users are sharing video IMs with the users they think they’re sharing them with.

“By using Nexmo Verify to manage authentications, our developers can stay focused on other important areas,” says Adam Baker, Co-Founder of Reel. “Our eyes are on the user experience, so we’re able to apply our resources to that. It’s an ongoing effort, and Verify makes it easy for us to stay focused.”

Going above and beyond expectations

Maintaining your business’ reputation also means your customers must be able to rely on you for their needs. A leading Southeast Asian publisher of popular online games and social networking apps, relies on Nexmo’s Cloud Services for SMS and Voice to ensure the rapid and reliable delivery of messages. By integrating the Nexmo Cloud APIs for SMS and Voice, it approached the installation of these apps with the same focus on the customer experience that it had brought to the presentation of its online games. Since integrating Nexmo, the company has enjoyed a significant bump in its conversion rate – five percent per month.

“We use text messages to authenticate the mobile numbers of the individuals installing our apps,” explains one manager at Garena. “The user’s decision to install our app may be very spontaneous, and if the text message doesn’t go through or if it takes too long to arrive, it’s likely that we’ll lose that user — and all our marketing costs will have been wasted. For that reason, it’s very important to us that text messages go through effectively.”

Regardless how you protect your data, reputation and, ultimately, your customers, just be sure you don’t fall victim to security breaches or fraud.

Read next: Cloud security: what’s the big deal?

Image credit: Shutterstock