How Will the CCPA Affect My Business?

The enactment of the California Consumer Privacy Act has drawn different sentiments from business owners. This seems to have upset an already established paradigm for marketers, especially, because the data-driven marketing and customer experience that have changed the ball game in the recent years is about to get punctuated by this sudden seismic shift. 

People who were not fully informed about the CCPA may start running for the hills. We don’t want company owners like you to sign up for the next service you can find that promises some form of protection for your business because the best protection you can get is learning more about the CCPA and understanding its implications towards your business. Furthermore, if you look at it from a different vantage point, you might find opportunities to leverage the change to your advantage. 

What Changes Can We Expect?

The CCPA is intended to make your customer’s data more secure and protected by informing consumers about the following things: 

• What personal information is collected, used, shared or sold, both as to the categories and specific pieces of personal information.
• The right to delete personal information held by businesses and by extension, a business’s service provider.
• The right to opt-out of sale of personal information. Consumers are able to direct a business that sells information to stop selling that information. Children under the age of 16 must provide opt-in consent, with a parent or guardian consent for children under 13.
• The right to non-discrimination in terms of price or service when a consumer exercises privacy right under CCPA.

*Information is taken from the State of California Department of Justice website.

Will the CCPA Impair All Marketing Efforts

There is no definite answer to that because it depends largely on how you handle your customers. While customers may feel hesitant or worried about sending their information online knowing what that may entail, it’s a tradeoff that most are willing to make in exchange for a positive and more personalized experience.

Consumers prefer a brand that knows them – a company that understands their needs and provides relevant recommendations. If your company can go beyond just gathering data and, instead, interpret the data to come up with relevant offers to the customer, you are able to build brand loyalty. On the flip side, a company that spams their consumers will end up losing more contacts from their mailing list.

There are a lot of things left to be learned about the CCPA and how technology can make this work for companies and not against them. Experts are slowly uncovering strategies to help make things work for businesses, with – or in spite of – the CCPA enactment, however they may want to look at the recent changes. We always encourage everyone to take the time to keep themselves in the know.