Data and analytics are increasingly the major strategic differentiators for prosperous, high-growth organisations. Whether you are a local small business or a successful enterprise, you need to consider data as one of your most valuable assets.
But what is data worth if it’s not accessible when you need it, or worse – if it’s obsolete, missing, or erroneous?
Undoubtedly, both a surplus and a lack of data can be detrimental. That’s why it’s so significant to properly manage your customer data, which can be both perplexing and laborious.
gert makes data management a breeze for Zendesk users. Once you add gert bot to your Zendesk account, you can use it to define your specific criteria for which tickets that need anonymising, when and how often – all without coding. The bot will continuously work in the background, anonymising sensitive customer information while allowing you full access to valuable statistics.
Let’s dive deeper into how gert can help companies manage their data effectively to improve customer experience. But first, let’s explore some data management challenges that companies face
Challenges associated with customer data management
Do you know, the amount of data created by customers doubles every two years, but 99% of new data is never used, analysed, or transformed? In terms of how business leaders interact with data, 70% of the time is spent finding data with only 30% analysing it.
Why is that so? Due to the following challenges:
Large data volume
Businesses need to have the ability to process large volumes of customer data so that critical information is made available to the decision-makers as and when they need it. However, they frequently face the challenge of collecting, managing, and deriving insights from this data.
Increasing number of devices
The increasing number of devices and platforms and the recurrently decreasing cost of storage have compounded the challenge of the management and removal of old data.
Mapping out the customer journey
Companies need to know about real-time customer data, touchpoints for interaction, behavioural stages, user sentiment, and much more to chart out a customer journey map that can help them in providing the best customer experience.
However, even in the current digital era, it is challenging to track the process of how consumers transition from brand awareness to conversion.
Customer data collection and storage
Companies are making an intensive effort to know their customers and their marketplace to outperform their competitors. However, the quickly changing customer behaviour is making it tough for them to gain essential customer knowledge.
How gert streamlines data management
gert is a tool that helps you ensure that GDPR-sensitive information is removed from your Zendesk records. You define rules to select the records you want gert to look at, for example, using the state of a ticket or the number of open tickets associated with a user record.
gert runs automatically and continuously. It does not require you to be logged in to your Zendesk instance, so it will keep monitoring your instance even after you have logged off and gone home.
If you choose to redact tickets, gert will desensitise the text in the ticket, instead of just removing it. When redacting user information, gert will desensitise text fields, while identity information, such as telephone numbers and email addresses, is anonymised. This allows you to have all statistics available, but without worrying about storing sensitive information for longer than necessary. gert will handle tickets in all states, also tickets that have already been closed.
With rules, you can specify filters for records you want gert to redact. The rule format follows the search functionality used in Zendesk. As a part of gert’s rules, you can define tags that gert will add to the record it is redacting. This allows you to quickly identify records that have been looked at by gert.
Text redaction in gert
Text redaction is performed by replacing each character with a box character. This is done for ticket comments, descriptions, subjects, and so on.
As closed tickets cannot be changed, gert replaces the closed ticket with a new ticket where the redaction has been done and then deletes the original ticket.
Therefore, redacted closed tickets will be available for a short amount of time as “soft-deleted” tickets in Zendesk. If the rule asks for deletion of the ticket, then the ticket will also be “soft-deleted”.
User records redaction in gert
Redaction of user records follows the same method. Text fields are redacted by overwriting each character. However, identity fields must be correctly formatted, so gert has to generate unique, valid emails, telephone numbers, and so on, instead of just overwriting the fields.
User records cannot be deleted, as they may be referenced by tickets. Instead, gert removes most of the fields in the user record and generates a new unique identity for the record. Regardless of whether the user record is redacted or deleted, the user photo is changed to a general icon.
Key features of gert
- 24/7 Automation- Once gert is added to your Zendesk account, it works automatically 24/7, all year long so you can spend your time on more mission-critical tasks.
- Flexibility – With gert, you have the flexibility to define what rules apply to your company or what legislation you are subject to.
- No Data Loss – gert only anonymises data that can be traced back to a person. It doesn’t lose or anonymise data that you will be using to grow your business.
- Zero Code Setup – You can easily set up the gert bot. All you have to do is define the rules you want to apply. There’s no need for coding.
- Unified Interface – No matter how many Zendesk systems you use, you only need one interface/login to manage your bot.
- Compatibility– Regardless of what legislation you’re adhering to, gert can help you. This includes GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PIPEDA, APEC CBPR, and more.
Final thoughts
A persistent, unified customer view is what companies strive for. With gert, you get access to a GDPR tool for Zendesk users that provides the groundwork for many business initiatives such as better customer experiences, stronger engagement, richer customer journeys, and even an understanding of what customers may be in the market for.
Get in touch to learn more about gert and how it can simplify your customer data management process.