Keep your customers happy by protecting their prívacy (web)

With the concern for online prívacy these days, it's important that your customers feel comfortable visiting your site. Without that comfortable feeling, they may only be one-time customers instead of repeat customers. When establishing a customer database, it's important to consider the following:

Make sure they know it wasn't you
Like just about everything else in life, it seems that a few people spoil all the good stuff for everyone and, unfortunately, eCommerce and the Web are no exceptions. Once a vendor has your name, and more importantly, your buying behaviors, they often sell your name to a multitude of mailing list companies. While this may be a great way to market some items, most people don't like having their names sold to a list broker without their permission. To make your customers feel most at ease, establish a yearly customer database-auditing program and post the results on the site. The audit should include a list of the third-party transactions related to your database, including any list sales or rentals. That way, your customers can see that it wasn't you who sold their names.

Give them a chance to run away.
Whenever you collect names, demographic information, or individual buying behaviors, you should allow customers to choose whether they want their names available for rental, or even for your own marketing ploys. Always include an option for customers to gracefully bow out of your marketing schemes. As an added benefit, by including this option, the resulting list is actually more valuable to the list brokers.

Explain everything up front to customers.
If you collect any information at all on the people who visit your Web site, the site should include a prívacy statement. For instance, possibly a note that tells the viewer that you might choose, at your discretion, to tell other marketers that the viewer has a standing order for any new Barbie and Ken products. Warning them gets you off the proverbial hook and at least presents concern over their prívacy.

Use your own eCommerce database.
There's no reason why your customer list has to just sit there collecting dust, even if you don't feel that it's right to rent the names. Use the list to occasionally send customers email about new features on your Web site or to introduce new product lines. By doing so you can verify the mailing list, and who knows, they might even be prompted to order something.