A big thank you to all our CiviCON UK Sponsors. Here's a special post from Gold Sponsor Yoti:

Doing things differently: Registrations in seconds, logins without passwords and minimising data.

Over the last 15 years I’ve probably been responsible for around 50 or so websites or microsites that in some way or another have tried to gather people’s data.  Either to enter into an event, join a forum or buy something.  And like most other marketeers I’ve been obsessed by two things.  Funnels and Data. i.e how easily are people signing up and how much do I now know about my customers.  I’ve always known that by asking people for more information there was a danger people would drop out of my acquisition funnel but we marketeers are hungry for data. We want it all and we want it now.

I’ve now come to realise that less is more.  I still want the customers, and loads of them, but I want them to join me on their terms. If I ask people less about themselves I’m more likely to get an answer. 

I always try to liken marketing situations with personal situations.  When you first meet someone in a bar you don’t tend to ask them everything about themselves in the first sentence.  You might introduce yourself and ask them their name.  And perhaps ask them where they’re from.  You certainly wouldn’t ask their address or birthday.  If you did, you can be fairly sure they’d either not tell you or they’d give you a fake one and then avoid you for the rest of the night.  So why do we do it in business?  

So we can send them emails they’ll never read?  Send them mail that’ll clog up their recycling bin. Profiling our user base?  Most businesses can’t afford this kind of wastage.  We can’t afford to be sending emails that damage our brand by clogging up people’s inboxes or sending people mail that costs us thousands of pounds.  And just how much effective user profiling can be done if the data they are giving us isn't actually real in the first place?

I want to suggest a revolutionary new idea.  Why not just ask for less, just their first name? Or maybe, not even ask them anything at all. Imagine if you could give them access to a secure user profile on your website even though you didn't even have a name or email address for them.  And they could return to that profile whenever they want to tell you a bit more about themselves. Imagine if you could give them a special key to your world.

A special key?  What like a password?  Surely not...No, not like a password.  Just let them use their phone and their biometrics.  Let them then build their trust with you by adding more details when they want to.  When they need to.  Let them feel special by showing them all the awesome stuff they can now see that nobody else can, and then when you need their address to send them something they've bought you can ask for it.  You could even give them the option of giving you their phone number or email so you can tell them when you’ve got something new and cool to sell. Or you could just say ‘come and stop by whenever you fancy. You’ve got the keys and you can’t lose them so come and have a browse whenever you fancy it.’

It feels a little scary doesn't it? Having anonymous customers that are in control of what information they give you and when.  But there's also all sorts of other interesting stuff it means you could do. You can create chat forums where people just prove they are from a certain city but otherwise remain anonymous.  You could build web forums for children that only allowed people under a certain age or over another age to register.

However, I know there are plenty of us who do actually need all the data up front, just because that’s how business works and it may take a while for my utopian customer-centric world to exist.  And plenty of businesses need to be absolutely sure they have the right name and address to eliminate fraud that’s costing us billions of pounds every year.

But these businesses still want to get people signed up quickly and they’re still scared about getting their data hacked.  And a lot of businesses do end up giving their customers passwords, which their customers usually forget.

We created Yoti to try and let people and businesses do all of the above. We want to encourage businesses to ask for less, but give you the confidence people are who they claim to be.  We want to make it frictionless for you to sign up new verified customers. We don't want anyone to ever hate your website just because they forgot their password.

Yoti is an easy to use digital identity app for consumers and secure digital identity attribute exchange platform for organisations. Our phones help us connect, make payments and board planes, it’s time that they helped us prove our identity.

People create their Yoti by downloading our free app, prove they’re a real person and match their selfie to their passport or driving licence photo. In less than 5 minutes, out pops their verified digital identity that they control for life. Yoti uses AES 256 encryption to store and share user data in such a way that only they have access to their personal details. Yoti cannot see or access any personal information once the accounts have been verified.

Once people have Yoti they can then prove any element of their identity in seconds to businesses and organisations that accept Yoti.  They simply scan a QR code if they are on a desktop, or press ‘Use Yoti’ if on their mobile.  They’ll then be told what information is being requested and they allow the information to be shared.  Registered in seconds.  They can then log back in using their Yoti. No password is required meaning they’ll never forget them and the business need never worry about whether or not they chose a secure password.  

We are building an ecosystem of places where people can use Yoti in their everyday life. They will use Yoti to prove their age at the supermarket self checkout, apply for jobs online, sign up to new web services, prove their age on nights out instead of having to carry their passport.

We’re in our ‘pre-launch’ phase at the moment (we launch in November) but people seem interested.  Over 65,000 people have installed the app already and some great businesses and organisations like Reed, Worldpay and NSPCC are already working with Yoti.

To make it as easy as possible for businesses and organisations to use Yoti we've developed a number of SDKs in seven different coding languages and plugins for Wordpress and Drupal 7, with Joomla and Drupal 8 in development right now.

If you'd like to find out more about Yoti please visit www.yoti.com

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