Digital identity expert Jamie Smith continues his journey to unlock hidden customer potential with eIDAS2, exploring what it could mean for businesses and how they can respond.
In part 1, we looked at broken customer experiences, and why things aren’t joined up. And we introduced the idea of using a digital wallet to ‘see’ across the wider customer journey. So, let’s now return to eIDAS2 and the EU digital wallet.
Right now, it’s being driven into the market by regulation. As a result, it’s often seen as a compliance matter eating into profits. A cost to be minimised.
Execs will say things like:
‘What’s the minimum we can spend on this wallet thing without getting a fine?’
‘Will it really be enforced? If so, what’s the brand and company risk if we don’t implement it?’
‘Will our customers really want to use one of these new digital wallets?’
‘Can we just wait until the market has responded, including our competitors?’
But let’s flip it. What if there was a business growth opportunity here? Where compliance teams can help businesses to adopt the EU digital wallet and drive new business? To turn regulation into revenue.
Let’s look at some of the growth opportunities with eIDAS2 that many folks are overlooking.
Most people don’t want to spend time online with businesses. Filling out forms. Updating details. Clicking and scrolling and tapping. They just want the outcome. An updated account, a confirmed booking, a change of details, a check of availability. The opportunity here is for the digital wallet to become a remote control for the customer’s account. Where the customer can - outside the business’s IT firewall - update their details automatically, securely, and privately. Or they can interact with a digital platform or product directly, self-service. A new, trusted digital wallet will drive business growth by removing much of the need for customer engagement in certain parts of the customer journey. Improving customer outcomes and lowering overheads like customer support.
Once customers can prove who they are using their own digital tools, like an eIDAS2-approved identity wallet, it’s going to change why, how, and where customer engagement happens. With a digital wallet, the customer can show up in a verified, trustworthy, persistent new digital channel. And that channel can contain verified, trustworthy data. Over time, you can see how businesses will begin to shift their digital channel strategies. Because this new digital wallet channel will be lower-cost, lower-fraud, and lower cost-to-serve. It will be more authenticated, more trustworthy, and more flexible. It will work in any context, online, and off. On the phone to the contact centre or in store. A new, trusted digital wallet will drive business growth by becoming a more seamless, more intelligent, and lower-cost channel for customer engagement.
As we saw above in the travel example, a new digital wallet can be used right across the customer journey. From ‘awareness and consideration’, to ‘return and close’, as customer experience experts would say. But here’s the best bit. Not only will the digital wallet show up from start to finish, but it can carry with it a personal, private customer profile. There’s no need to limit a digital wallet to just ‘identity’ and proving ‘who I am’. But it can include portable preferences and contexts. Even customer needs and wants. A new, trusted digital wallet will drive business growth by enabling smarter, non-creepy personalisation that will improve customer satisfaction, increase average revenue per customer, and over time, customer loyalty. But this isn’t just about new digital features for customers. Digital wallets have the potential to transform business outcomes and growth. I’ll go further. Digital wallets will unlock a vast, new multi-billion euro market for Empowerment Tech that helps businesses connect with customers in a whole new way.
Ask any large business and you’ll hear stories about problems moving customer data around the business. Can we trust that the data came from the other department? Is it worth connecting these two business systems to make it worth it? Mostly the answer is ‘no’. Which is why business and IT systems remain so fragmented. And why the digital customer experience is so often broken. But with a digital wallet, companies can give the data back to the individual. Where the customer can move their personal information more seamlessly, securely, and privately than the business can on its own. A new, trusted digital wallet will drive business growth by lowering the cost of moving data between business units. They will lead to more joined-up customer journeys, fewer drop-off points, and more conversion in cross-sell and up-sell experiences.
The CD ‘digitised’ music in the late 1980s. But in 2009, Spotify made music truly digital. Rather than buying specific albums, you could listen to any track, any time, from anywhere, and stream the tracks in any order. With a trusted digital identity wallet, the customer can quickly become the most trusted source of their personal data. And we’ll move from batch data collection of customer data (via forms and APIs) to streaming customer data. When the business needs some customer information, it will be the fastest, most accurate, and compliant way to just ask the customer directly. A new, trusted digital wallet will drive business growth by enabling businesses to collect the right data at the right time, from the right customer sources. That means smarter customer profiles for personalisation, more seamless customer interactions with lower costs, and higher trust in the brand.
Today, we’re only really doing ‘digital transformation’ on the business side. It’s all about new customer portals, online forms, and an explosion of new apps. But with a new digital wallet like eIDAS2, we can introduce the next generation of digital transformation. Delivering automation and data intelligence on the customer side, not just within business IT systems. What previously required a call to the contact centre can now be automated by the customer themselves. What previously required re-entering customer data across different points of the customer journey can now be done quietly, securely - and auditable - by the digital wallet in the background.
A new, trusted digital wallet will unleash new levels of digital transformation, but this time on the customer side.
Empowerment means AND not OR.
Customer empowerment doesn’t mean handwaving about digital sovereignty, personal agency, and data portability. Nor is it about citizen rights to digital privacy and anti-surveillance.
It’s about digital growth. About smarter customer engagement. And about better business.
It’s an AND, not an OR.
It’s about citizens AND government. Consumers AND business. About compliance AND digital growth. Where a digital ID can enable more compliant use of digital ID. But with a lower cost-to-serve and lower risk.
So, with eIDAS2, do you see compliance or growth?
Because the new EU digital identity wallet is really about Empowerment Tech. About digital trust. And about a hidden €Bn market opportunity for a new customer channel that can completely reimagine customer engagement.
It’s just that most can’t see it yet.
Because they’re looking at it the wrong way.
If you are looking for help with your digital ID or digital wallet strategy, get in touch at mail@customerfutures.com.
About Jamie Smith
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