In “Beauty and the Beast’s” opening number, Belle’s neighbors detail their small town’s comings and goings, while shopkeepers proactively fling the usual orders out to villagers like clockwork.
That’s because, over the years, they’ve constructed a mental database of their customers’ needs, preferences, and requirements. The system worked, though, because they were dealing with a small population, unregulated industries, and minimal technology. (And yes, an entirely fictional scenario to boot, which probably made it easier.)
Today, your business collects similar customer stories just as detailed (if not more!)—but from people thousands of miles away from your headquarters. Depending on the size and scale of your operation, you may have to protect this data by following privacy laws set by multiple countries and even individual states.
And when you’re dealing with the names, contact information, and behavioral patterns of thousands, if not millions, of customers, you’re likely wondering how you can operationalize privacy rights cost-effectively.
Fortunately, ironclad privacy rights processes are more than a way to avoid increasingly aggressive fines. Beyond the obvious regulatory compliance lies a range of business opportunities ready to deliver long-term ROI.
How streamlined privacy rights processes pay off
In today’s business and privacy environment, companies can’t count on flying under the radar.
And it’s just as much about consumer trust as it is regulatory compliance. Customers feel more uneasy about how companies use their data than how the government handles it.
The good news? When you prioritize privacy, the benefits ripple across your organization.
Proactive privacy compliance safeguards your bottom line
A few snapshots of privacy run-ins from the last six months:
In March, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) fined American Honda Motor Co. over $630,000 for turning what should’ve been a simple opt-out into a bureaucratic maze. Consumers were asked to jump through too many hoops—like uploading ID photos—to stop data sharing.
And in May, a similar headline made the news when luxury menswear brand, Todd Synder, paid a six-figure fine for CCPA violations, ones that include making consumers provide more information than necessary to process privacy requests and failing to process consumer opt-out requests within the 40-day timeframe.
But while these CCPA fines were costly, that fine was probably the smallest line item on their privacy failure invoice. Consider that:
● Their legal team had to rebuild the entire opt-out process while regulators watched.
● Their engineering team had to recode systems that should have worked correctly from launch.
● Their PR team had to create ta plan to mitigate the fallout while also rebuilding consumer trust.
Every hour spent in damage control was one not spent on the initiatives that supported revenue goals. Companies that build compliant privacy rights processes from day one avoid this expensive scramble entirely.
Privacy compliance smartens operations company-wide
McKinsey maintains that workers spend about one day a week searching for information within their company systems. In a mid-size enterprise of 1,000 employees, that’s over 416,000 hours of lost productivity annually! Imagine what that means in terms of handling privacy processes.
But a well-designed privacy operation can transform how your entire organization approaches data handling. The steps you take to meet regulatory requirements often become the foundation for smarter operations, including centralizing customer information, mapping where data resides, and creating clearer workflows for handling it.
From sales to legal to accounting, teams are no longer digging through siloed systems or chasing down records—they’re creating documented and systematized processes that turn privacy chaos into privacy coordination.
Customers stay loyal to brands that protect their data
Your brand reputation is hard-won, but a single data misstep can lead to customers abandoning your email lists, badmouthing you on social media—or even worse—switching their business to one of your competitors. Cisco’s 2024 Consumer Privacy Survey illustrates how crystal clear customers are in how they want their data handled:
● Eighty-one percent of consumers say their trust in a brand is directly influenced by how their personal data is handled.
● Forty-seven percent have switched companies based on data practices they didn’t like.
● Seventy-five percent say they simply won’t buy from companies they don’t trust with their data.
Privacy rights aren’t just a compliance checkbox. They’re a powerful tool for building trust. When customers see that you make it easy for them to access their data, it shows that you value more than just transactions—you value them.
Where to begin: Streamlining privacy requests in 5 smart moves
Here are four practical steps to help you reduce friction, stay compliant, and create a smoother privacy rights request experience for both your team and your customers.
1. Provide customers with multiple submission channels
A recent Consumer Reports study dispatched 500 Californians to visit 214 websites. Their task? Submit a “right to opt-out” request to prevent the company from selling their data.
A staggering 62% of participants were unable to determine how to do it, and even if they managed to figure it out, they never received any confirmation. So don’t make it unfindable—consider making it findable in more than one place on your site. Poor design and poor user experience gives the impression you’re hiding something, and you never want to give customers this idea when it comes to privacy.
Your starting point: Instead of thinking, “Where should we post our privacy rights request options?” Think: “Where shouldn’t we?” Put your privacy request link in your website footer, account settings, and privacy policy (we’ll note that the privacy policy requirement here is generally standard among privacy policies).
And make sure it’s labeled clearly with “Privacy Rights Requests” or “Manage My Data” so customers don’t have to decode whether “data inquiries” means what they need.
Additionally, if regulations require phone support, train whoever answers the phone (more on training below) to recognize when someone says “delete my information” versus “close my account.” They’re different requests with different legal requirements. You don’t want (generally speaking) a representative saying “I can’t honor your request” if that’s going to be violating a law.
Finally, test your system quarterly by submitting test requests to ensure it is functioning correctly. We’ve audited companies whose beautifully crafted privacy forms were routed to email addresses that hadn’t been checked in months.
2. Accelerate privacy busywork with process automation
You may be thinking, “Great, we have our policies solidified, my IT team is ready to implement a more user-friendly way for customers to submit privacy questions, but actionably, how on earth will we manage to sift through all these incoming requests?”
The concern is justifiable. The average enterprise runs 1,061 distinct software apps, meaning customer data is often fragmented and difficult to track.
How are you supposed to delete or edit information that’s scattered across so many data silos?
Your starting point: Process automation software serves as the flight deck of your customer data. Essentially, you prepare the route to satisfy a rights request, and with the click of a button, software runs through your checklist, solving to-dos autonomously.
There are two levels of automation you can incorporate. Basic automation handles request intake, verification, and routing. Full automation connects directly to your data systems for automatic access and deletion. This requires extensive setup but pays off for high-volume requests.
Either approach can save you considerable time; processes that could take an individual a half-day to complete can be completed in minutes. The key is knowing which solution is most appropriate for your business needs; if you only handle requests occasionally, full automation may not be necessary, but if you have a high volume of requests, a full automation approach will be the better choice.
Process automation software also makes it easier to stay current as global privacy laws evolve. You can edit your privacy rights workflows in a central location, once, rather than updating a dozen different manual procedures.
3. Train your team (and train them more than you think you need to)
Finally—train, train, train! You don’t want to invest all this effort in styling and streamlining your privacy procedures, only to leave your customer service team in the dark.
Say a customer calls your professionally posted toll-free number with questions about how your company handles their data. A confused rep shuffles them along to various other confused reps, all unfamiliar with your new privacy rights, or even worse, they have no clue what a privacy rights request is.
Your starting point: Cross-functional team training—based on live training and/or real use cases—is where a comprehensive privacy rights process comes full circle.
Anyone who engages directly with consumer data, whether they take appointments or track shipments, should understand your privacy process. Depending on your business, that might look like:
● Customer service recognizes and routes requests.
● IT locates data across systems for deletion or export.
● Marketing understands the difference between suppressing emails and full data deletion.
● Sales recognizes CRM retention rules.
● Finance handles transaction history requests.
Each team needs to know their role in the legal timeline (which varies depending on jurisdiction) and when to escalate. Without cross-functional training, privacy requests become a game of hot potato that scorches your compliance deadline.
4. Don’t let vendor gaps put your data practices at risk
In many recent privacy violations, the CPPA also found that companies disclosed consumer information to third-party adtech vendors without verifying their compliance with the CCPA.
That’s right—if you share customer data with other businesses, you’re liable for how it’s handled downstream. Following a vendor’s privacy breach, companies often spend months auditing every single business relationship, while lawyers review hundreds of contracts.
Your starting point: Treat third-party data sharing as an extension of your compliance responsibilities. That means putting strong contract language in place with every vendor. Define how customer data can be used, require confidentiality, and confirm the proper channels are in place for satisfying incoming privacy requests.
It’s also crucial to ensure that your privacy requirements are incorporated into vendor agreements before any contracts are signed. The upfront legal work costs less than explaining to the CPPA why your email marketing platform sold customer data to companies you’d never heard of. Consider leveraging frameworks like the IAB’s due diligence framework and MSPA (Multi-State Privacy Agreement) to help streamline vendor compliance assessments.
5. Put sustainability into your processes
Where is your privacy program six months from now? A year? Five years? As your business grows, regulations evolve, and new tools appear faster than you can evaluate them, you need to have a plan to keep up. Without one, your privacy activities could become a liability instead of a safeguard.
Your starting point: Build these checkpoints into your regular operations so you can manage privacy change as well as you do changing products, services, and operations. Here are a few starting points:
● New vendor onboarding: That marketing platform your team wants to try? Build privacy requirements into your procurement process before any data gets shared.
● Data expansion tracking: New customer information fields tend to appear quietly. Regular data inventories help catch these additions before they become compliance gaps.
● Regulatory monitoring: Set up quarterly reviews to assess emerging laws and adjust your workflows accordingly
When change happens—and it will—your privacy process adapts smoothly instead of scrambling to catch up.
Get ready to pull privacy’s hidden growth lever
You’re out there gathering insights, listening closely to what your customers say, do, and need—because that information fuels your growth. Like the shopkeepers familiar with Belle and her fellow villagers’ patterns and habits, you’ve built a business on knowing your audience.
But with that comes the responsibility of protecting their stories and personal information. When you treat privacy as part of your overall operations, you’ll find it’s more than satisfying legal hurdles; it also deepens the way you connect with your customer base.
Privacy Rights Roadmap: Business Guide
Discover how to simplify compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy laws with our comprehensive Privacy Rights Roadmap.
