With the discussions of uncovered personal information by the press recently it seems one of the biggest reasons to disclose what you are doing with customer data is to not get bitten by the surprise factor. If a company is being straight, most users are seemingly OK with the “spying.” I’ll leave aside if that is implied consent or naïve consent.

As a business traveler I loved it when the airlines reluctantly transitioned to communicating tarmac-wheels-down data to their customers electronically. There was tremendous hesitancy from the airline-employee old-guard about this “internal-only” operational disclosure, but it ended up freeing up time for gate agents, travel agents, etc., not to mention providing immeasurable good-will to me, I mean, ALL business travelers. What started out with great trepidation turned out to be something so positive.

In the web space, we are now in the age of collecting lots of data about our customers and over time, we’ll see it is beneficial for us to keep a truthful line of open communication. If we disclose to our customers how we use all this information – aren’t we really helping them understand every bit of value-add we bring to them?

Early in my career I dreaded writing status reports for my clients. Then I realized it was an opportunity to remind them of all the little things I was able to do for them beyond just meeting the terms of the contract and deliverable specifics. These were my differentiators and why I knew I’d get hired again.

First of all, you may not have a choice. See my post on the EU Cookie Laws. Now, browser manufacturers are responding to users’ demands to help keep private information private and are enabling something akin to the “do not call” database accessible within their browsers. At this time, this is mostly, if not completely useless until the web server side starts to play along. But to be proactive, you may as well start to figure out how you want to work with your customers so you are not blind-sided by some third party technology constraint. Not to mention, getting the messaging write and making some system changes may not be all that straightforward for you.

Second, being secretive just seems to be bad business. I don’t like to be painted with a bad brush and we’ll all be in a better place if we communicate with our customers and don’t pull the poorly conceived “just change it” recent “ownership” moves by Instagram/Facebook; or the Google Street View issues in Switzerland (and elsewhere) where they captured and kept more information than for their intended purpose (and got caught.)

Why isn’t disclosing to our customers what we bring to them a good thing? Yes, I realize they may not like everything we are doing with their data but it seems with today’s’ consumers, they really don’t mind giving up something for something of value.  Many would say grocery frequent buying programs are substantially more personal than browsing data and I don’t know anyone that doesn’t participate. Again, users will not likely mind but studies show negative outcomes when it’s a surprise.

Communicating with your customers takes careful planning and good execution to do it right. Product Marketing/Product Management must be on point for how and what cookies are doing and be responsible for crafting an intelligible message. Of course, you’ll want to review with Marketing and Legal, too, but the Product teams will have the best perspective on the key strategic factors.

How important is the message? Orbitz recently admitted they showed Apple users higher priced hotels first, a different approach than for PC/Windows users since that is what Apple users typically buy. Most of us yawned as it confirmed what many of us know about Apple buyers.  But the point I want to make is with this innocent example of better sales/marketing & customer service – it caused a lot of misinformation and maybe some lost customers. We have to remember our customers have brief attention spans. Many people were in an uproar, needlessly: “It is terrible I’m being charged more for the same room!” What? Did you read the statement?  Maybe a well described statement with examples on what and how they use some of this information in the user-experience helps people understand but more importantly, keeps them coming back.  I know I like vendors to serve up what I want in the first few pages and not have me scrolling through page after page of options. And I don’t have to know how this happens, but I’m glad it does.

And, once I’ve bought that microwave, it’d be nice to not have to be told about microwave sales. This is why it is nice to not just tell the user what you are recording but allow them to edit notable tags.

All of my days supporting sales processes have reinforced being quickest to the buyer with what they want; when they are making the buying decision. As a consumer, I like being reminded on some pages that I’m still in the market for a new microwave and that new shock absorber thingee for my screen door. The EU guidance: tell the consumer what you are saving and allow the consumer to edit it seems aligned with my personal goals as a consumer and my business goals. It’s not needless regulation and not the scary govt big brother. As a supplier/manufacturer, I don’t want my IT guys telling me we’ll just tell the consumer to turn off cookies at the browser. I want the flexibility to work my customers and help them tailor my solution to them.

And when I work with my customers it takes me down a healthy strategic track. Which are my best customers? Which bring the most to the bottom line or sustained, year over year revenue? Content-oriented companies have a great ability to give premium services to premium customers. If you agree to share interests with us, we’ll provide more content as you are a customer which feeds my bottom line better.  This is why it is so critical to have Product Management and Product Marketing on point. They must know segmentation and customer value better than anyone and can be the right drivers for the right messaging and web fractional functionality.