3 Ways to Protect Your Online Customers

In online business today, brands have so much competition and so many threats to contend with. As a result, only the most vigilant are able to stay in the game. If you’re not willing to protect your online customers, you won’t last very long in business at all. Here are some ways to protect customer data and other important aspects of online transactions.

Keep Software Updated

As an online business owner, you will find entire security software suites that will help do the job for you. Rather than having to micromanage every little aspect of security individually, you can find software that handles these aspects together as a package. However, it is still entirely up to you to keep this software entirely up to date. According to Heimdal Security, updates keep up with new threats and breaches, and so keeping your software updated is a must. Choosing a premium suite is also vital.

Maintain PCI Compliance

You also must be entirely compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). For businesses that handle credit cards, this information security standard is a set of rules and standards that protects both you and customer data from various threats online. According to Merchant One, the Payment Card Industry Security Standard was designed by the five largest credit card companies to protect both themselves and customers from expensive data breaches. These rules and standards are 100% your responsibility to implement. Keep up to date with the PCI standards so that you’re always in compliance and that customer data is fully protected. This keeps everyone protected and ensures that your business is safe from breaches and noncompliance issues.

Premium Payment Processing

Every online business needs a way to handle customer transactions. This is why the payment processing system you use online must be a top-tier service. You need a system that’s easy to use for your customers so that they can quickly make payments and you need to have an amazing website to go along with it. It’s also best to have something that offers a lot of options so that you appeal to a much broader base. Look for a payment processor that can accept all forms of cards and perhaps even other payment methods, like e-checks and Bitcoin. This introduces you to a much larger customer base while also making it easier for your customers to do business with you.

There’s a lot of competition online. If you drop the ball in any of these areas and allow data breaches, fraud, and other issues to affect your customers, your business won’t be around very long. If you want to protect your customers and have them stick around for the long haul, make sure that you follow these tips for the best results.