When it comes to vendor risk management, security controls, privacy, and data protocols are stand-ins for a larger area of focus: customer trust. Vendor security boils down to establishing a solid baseline of trust between your team, your customers, and other vendors accessing your data. Customers will quickly take their business elsewhere without trust (bolstered, of course, by strong security controls).

Here are three straightforward ways to build relationships of trust with your customers:

1. Publish your security posture publicly

One of the most proactive ways to establish trust with customers early on (even before they start working with you) is to publish your security posture. Putting data privacy front-and-center for potential customers, partners, and vendors to access can help establish a reputation of trust in your industry. Additionally, it allows new customers going through implementation to get a head start on security documentation.

2. Establish data security as a core tenant of your business

Second, from the CEO down to the newest intern, your entire team should be fully educated and aware of the importance of vendor security processes. Training your internal team to identify risks, escalate potential threats, and mobilize issue protocols gives everyone a sense of responsibility and accountability for vendor security. Additionally, all of these resources can speak confidently to customers about data security, giving them another level of reassurance and trust.

3. If there is an issue, have a mitigation plan ready

While vendor risk management processes are in place for a reason, there is always the risk of something malicious slipping through the cracks. Reviewing your plans in advance with customers, telling them exactly what will happen if a threat does occur, and then putting those plans into action if needed shows your customers your team is willing to go the extra mile for their data.

4. Build strong customer relationships with Whistic

Establishing trust with customers doesn’t happen overnight. It requires substantial training of internal resources, complete transparency with your external contacts, and a sense of confidence in your processes. With Whistic, your team can build the right processes, increase transparency and visibility, and give your resources the tools they need to be successful.

The Whistic platform allows InfoSec teams to build out a Security Profile securely, then publish security posture for other vendor or customer teams to access. Additionally, InfoSec teams can give internal resources access to security documentation, updates, and necessary information for their own purposes without worrying about unwarranted edits or updates. And finally, the cloud-based Whistic platform provides the flexibility and organization necessary for teams that need to jump into action when a data breach occurs.

You can learn more aboutWhisticor schedule your one-on-one consultation of the solution today.