Customer expectations are rising faster than ever before. Customers increasingly choose to engage with brands across various digital channels that can deliver smarter, connected, personalized, and seamless experiences. Transforming the customer experience is at the heart of this digital transformation. Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is one of the key enabling technologies and solutions that makes this possible, and it is an increasingly strategic emerging area in Identity and Access Management (IAM).

With CIAM, businesses have the opportunity to recognize their customers at every interaction across multiple digital channels. Customer Identity is the front door to your digital business; it represents your brand and ultimately drives customer experience and interaction.

In this new video interview, Ian Glazer, VP of Identity Product Management at Salesforce, discusses some of the key trends and considerations for companies as they embark on their CIAM journey.

Customers expect consistent experiences across every communication channel

An important aspect of consumers' connection to a brand is familiarity. According to a recent Salesforce research report, “State of the Connected Customer,” 75% of consumers expect companies to provide a consistent experience wherever they engage with them—both online and offline. When a local coffee shop owner remembers a customer’s name, it means something; it makes that person want to come back. In this new, hyperconnected reality, customers expect to be consistently recognized and remembered across online channels just as they are at their go-to coffee shops.

Companies need to deliver a seamless digital customer experience

Customers engage with your brand across multiple digital channels, and if not integrated properly, each of these channels represents different identities and data silos for the same customer. As a result, this leads to an inconsistent and fragmented customer experience, and creates poor-quality data capture for CRM programs, making it impossible to see the customer as a whole. A CIAM solution enables businesses to create a single view of the customer, regardless of how many systems they have. Capabilities such as user registration, authentication, social login, user profile management, connecting customers to internal and third-party applications, and IoT-connected devices are the building blocks to provide a seamless customer experience across multiple channels and drive business growth.

How to get started on your CIAM journey

Customer identity provides immense value to businesses looking to drive customer engagement. If you’re just getting started on your CIAM journey, a recommended starting point is to first understand your organization’s priorities to determine where customer identity and access management fits as part of a larger digital transformation strategy. Upon embarking on your CIAM journey, it’s important to consider the following elements:

1. Identify the gaps. Sign up for your own service and notice where you get stuck and frustrated. Assemble a diverse group of people and observe where they get stuck and frustrated. These are the gaps you’ll need to identify before you can deliver a seamless customer journey.

2. Involve the right stakeholders. It doesn’t start and end with the right technology; you need to find the right stakeholders because CIAM can provide value to many in your organization. Make sure everyone has a chance to provide their input on what capabilities are needed to meet expectations.

3. Bridge siloed identity infrastructure. To provide a complete view of the customer, consider implementing a business platform that brings customer data in and makes it available to others, to better deliver customer success.