Giving Your Customer Demographic Data Away
There is an ID Checker company who wants to collect your customer data and give you some on-line reports. This start up believes they can make money selling this data to consumers who will pay to see the demographics of your bar. They sell you an ID Scanner Age Verification system and then collect zip code (which can indicate how rich/poor your customers are), date of birth (to calculate age), and gender. With this data, they provide a profile of clients to their customers who are trying to find bars with the right mix of rich/poor young/old males/females. Its an interesting idea. But as a club owner, you should consider the following before agreeing to give away this customer data.
- Will your clients like to be categorized to the rest of the night life community?
- Will clients shun your business if they can see you business has the wrong mix of girls/boys.
- Will broadcasting your client mix attract the wrong group to the club. Lets say you hae a rich clientle and perhaps it will attract folks from the other side of the track.
- What happens if a virus or trojan infects the ID Check and starts sending data to identiy thieves. Is the club liable? Who is liable?
- How will your competitors use this data? Do you want your business client data broadcast to your competitors?
- How accurate is the data transmitted to consumers? What if a competitor decides not to scan IDs of the males in order to boost the girl/boy ratio? What happens when a competitor scans 50 young girls IDs into his system at the start of the night to boost his numbers.
- What do you tell clients when they ask why you are letting their personal data be transmitted to the entire city? What kind of signage should you display at the door - "We are allowing some of your personal data to be sold so consumers can identify what bar is good for them."
Its your client data, think before you share it.
