Zero to CX Hero: Passwordless Revolution Is Here
Discover the potential of CX, enhance security, and meet consumer demands for convenience.
The traditional password-based systems are becoming outdated, leading to customer frustrations, security vulnerabilities and hindering seamless digital experiences. Peter Barker, chief product officer at Ping Identity, explains how this shift is shaping CX this year.
Good customer experience (CX) is at the heart of all market-leading companies. In fact, according to Zendesk CX Trends 2024 report as many as 70% of brands see a direct connection between CX and performance. As the number of brands working to gain public attention increases and more options become readily available, the concerns of customers have only continued to grow in importance in order to beat out the competition. Often, these frustrations involve difficult registration and login experiences that are a direct result of the burdens that passwords generate for consumers.
In today’s digital age, the lingering echoes of passwords can be detrimental to organizations and CX leaders, creating an unsettling vulnerability to data breaches and unauthorized access. To make matters worse, traditional login experiences can lead to forgotten passwords and frequent reset prompts – causing frustrations and negative experiences. Consequently, 60% of consumers have switched brands.
Looking ahead, CX leaders will need to adopt more new authentication methods to safeguard business and meet customers’ heightened demands for convenience and security. A truly seamless CX experience requires discarding the old-fashioned password altogether.
Why Does a Positive and Secure CX matter?
CX has evolved in the past decade with digital transformation, and it will only continue to shift in the years to come. Companies must now move beyond traditional customer experiences and embrace hyper-personalization, which creates custom and targeted experiences through data and intelligence.
A positive CX can have numerous benefits beyond immediate financial gains, such as long-term customer loyalty, a positive brand image, and significant competitive advantages. For instance, 88% of buyers say experience matters as much as a company’s products or services, and CX drives over two-thirds of customer loyalty, which represents more than brand and price combined. As the digital aspirations of businesses continue to expand rapidly, CX departments need to adapt quickly and transition to more effective methods that provide greater benefits to consumers.
However, what leaders need to keep in mind is that a mere 10% of consumers have full trust in organizations that manage their identity data. This staggeringly low number shows the severity of just how many consumers are keeping security at the top of their minds with their online experiences – and why organizations must consider it. Digital experiences often begin and end with logging in and logging out – meaning passwords are at the core.
Keeping up with passwords, though, is a common headache among consumers, often leaving them frustrated and vulnerable to attacks. The annoyance of creating and keeping track of numerous different passwords come at a steep monetary cost for organizations– the global average cost of a data breach last year was 4.45 million, a 15% increase over 3 years, according to IBM’s 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report.
Passwordless authentication provides a clear, long-term solution to better security and user experience. For customers, passwordless logins improve engagement, lower abandonment rates, and ultimately drive higher revenues. What’s more, for employees, less time entering and resetting passwords means higher productivity and significantly less strain on helpdesks. Finally, the security benefits of these methods are also clear: 80% of breaches involve brute force attacks or the use of lost or stolen credentials.
To address these problems, there are a few strategies CX leaders can follow to improve customer experiences across the board, and it all starts with putting easy-to-use and secure login methods at the forefront.
See More: Why Businesses Can’t Sleep on Password Attacks
Prioritizing Security and Seamless Experiences
The login experience is critical to customer loyalty as it’s often the first impression of the brand. Despite this, time and time again, consumers typically get frustrated with complex, clunky login experiences – especially if it’s related to forgotten or reset passwords. Research found that a whopping 60% of consumers have stopped using an online service due to irritations associated with the login process. As a result, the conventional password-based login leads to customer fatigue.
Knowing that 81% of consumers say that ease of use is important when interacting with brands online, organizations need to keep seamless experiences at the forefront of everything they do. For organizations looking to improve the login experience, it’s important to consider the range of passwordless authentication options available for consumers. For example, device biometrics such as Apple’s facial recognition system and Face ID.
Since passwordless experiences and authentication options have become more mainstream in recent years, an additional 65% of those who stopped using an online service due to feelings of anger would switch to a comparable brand if it offered a passwordless authentication method. This suggests consumers are open to ditching traditional passwords and the annoyance they pose once and for all. In response, organizations must begin to implement passwordless authentication to safeguard business and meet customers’ heightened demands.
Why Going Passwordless is the Future for CX Leaders?
Going passwordless is one of the main solutions to consumers’ ongoing challenges. While most consumers feel confident their passwords are safe, the reality is that passwords leave users vulnerable to various cyberattacks. Nearly three-quarters of consumers believe their passwords are safe, yet only use three unique passwords across multiple logins, with 12% using the same password for everything. A considerable number of individuals then find themselves in the
position of having to continually replace or update their passwords every 6 months or even every month due to user errors such as misplacement or forgetting their password.
Notably, 59% of consumers report that their primary method of storing passwords is simply by remembering them, and 54% admit they have too many to keep track of. What’s just as concerning is that forgotten passwords and frequent reset prompts can oftentimes lead to customer anger, which can lead to harboring feelings of resentment towards the brand.
While consumers still have poor password hygiene and overconfidence in their online security behaviors, the good news is that most users are already receptive to switching their login methods. Research shows that one-third (34%) of consumers globally are open to using a passwordless login option if it were as or more secure than using a traditional password. When organizations make this transition to going passwordless, consumers will have more secure experiences and seamless ones as well.
Customer experience is changing across industries, and it’s no secret that consumers don’t want to be treated as solely numbers anymore. By 2025, more than 50% of the workforce and more than 20% of customer authentication transactions will be passwordless, up from less than 10% today. Now more than ever, CX leaders must meet customers’ heightened demands related to convenience and security. The goal is to strike the perfect balance between mitigating risk and having a positive customer experience. As organizations navigate the expanding digital landscape, it is crucial to acknowledge the threat of passwords and fortify defenses against risks. By embracing modern authentication methods and implementing passwordless solutions, organizations can strengthen their secure posture and ensure consumers have a more seamless and secure digital future.
What actions should organizations take to surpass the limitations of traditional password-based authentication systems this year to serve their customers better? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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