No internet savvy folk will find Single Sign-On (SSO) unfamiliar. It is so remarkable that it helps to minimize the risk of an accidental lockout which facilitates efficient use of IT through the automatic logins to applications deployed by IT department of companies. SSO is gradually evolving, gaining traction really fast and enjoying widespread adoption. You will most likely have seen many websites urging you to sign in using the feature. There are lots of reasons you might get interested in the use of the Single Sign-On in your business.
The relevance of SSO for excellent customer experience and conversion cannot be overemphasized. One of the best ways you can boost your customer engagement is through the use of a beautifully-designed page that will boost your customer loyalty. Using simple SSO to create an amazing login experience has the potential of enhancing customer satisfaction.
If you are interested in growth hacks, you should be thinking of converting your visitors to loyal customers as well as converting your existing customers to real buyers of your products. One of the best ways to get this done is through a beautifully-designed log-in and this is exactly what SSO is built to achieve. This helps to reduce time sink and frustrations experienced by customers.
Fundamental Considerations
Before I proceed to highlight some of the business advantages of Single Sign-On, it essential that you take note of some of the basic considerations for introducing SSO into your business. The first thing to note is that strong password policies which include complexity, age and history need be enforced to avoid compromising the accounts which could lead to unwarranted access to the services and applications
You also need to strike a balance between your security and the ease of use of your platform where multiple users could access the workstation. Beyond this, you need to configure frequent timeout and prompts for users’ confirmations. The power supply must be taken as a serious part of the SSO incorporation since power outage could potentially ruin the gains of SSO and thus could introduce the risk of failure of the application authentication.
Business advantages of SSO
Security Enhancement and Compliance
You might argue that since SSO minimises access barrier to user’s information assets in many places to a single access key, it’s counter-productive. You need to understand that this would give the user such assurance that undermines the need to write it down as well as make him feel less put off in trying to invent stronger passwords. The only key to successful application of this is that users must deviate from using the same password for multiple applications to avoid storing their credentials in undesired places. The best way to go about this is to design your solution as this gives you control over security.
The use of SSO in achieving security enhancement and compliance helps to urge users to adopt the use of security applications. This aids easy transfer of sensitive files and protected documents. Since one of the great challenges of applying password policy is the buy-in of customers and employees who could also circumvent the processes if found cumbersome. Thus, SSO could minimize the complexities involved and make the environment less difficult to work in.
Help Desk Cost Reduction
This is the first obvious commercial benefit. Several findings, especially that of Forrester Research, revealed that the average cost of password reset is around $70 and while the same findings also reported that 20 – 30 percent of help desk calls were password related. It would be clear now that the use of SSO will be a huge money saver through the improvement of password accessibility for users. This is true knowing that about 50% of Help Desk calls are requests for password resets.
There is rising insecurity on the cyberspace and firms are insisting on their users using a stronger password which most times the user is unlikely to remember. Using SSO can help to offer your users fewer password options while at the same time lower the cost of help desk and remove cost strain.
Customer Satisfaction Translates to Productivity
You would have observed that most sites and firms which focus on offering SSO are social networking sites and this could tell how much emphasis they place on end-user experience. Thus, the Single Sign-On guarantees users successful login experience. Companies who are into marketing could use this platform to understand the behaviour of users especially the login metrics to better design an effective strategy.
One major challenge of implementing password policy is the length of the process involved in the login. This means that user would need to scan through password lists to key in the right access word. In the event of password failure, they would have to go through several checks to ensure its properly keyed in and if the failure persists, they might need to place a call through Help Desk to ascertain what might have been wrong.
Where the Help Desk has lots of calls to handle at the same time, some calls might be placed on hold. This often results in customer dissatisfaction and the consequent loss of time. With SSO, this procedural challenge is overridden.
Finally, beyond the aforementioned business advantages, Single Sign-On could facilitate B2B collaboration by helping business to centralise management of authentication and help users log in once and gain access to several other shared applications. Thus, this reduces the time required for production and delivery services.
