How to Balance Speed and Security When 93% of Customers Would Lose Trust After a Data Mishap

Customers expect digital experiences to be fast and easy. But when sensitive information is involved, convenience isn’t enough. Customers also expect their personal data to remain secure. In a 2025 PwC survey opens in a new tab, 93% of respondents said the mishandling of their personal data would cause them to lose trust in a company.

For organizations in highly regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare, the stakes are particularly high. They need to verify identities, help prevent fraud, protect sensitive information, and meet stringent regulatory requirements while delivering the seamless digital experiences customers expect.

Our State of Digital Customer Experience 2026 report shows just how difficult that balance can be. Of the 100 CX leaders surveyed, more than a third cited fraud and identity verification concerns as a challenge in their digital agreement and form processes. At the same time, 40% of leaders reported abandonment rates of greater than 10% for digital agreement or form processes before completion.

Top digital agreement form challenges NewtonX CX Survey 2026

Together, these findings underscore the importance of designing workflows that protect customers and businesses without introducing unnecessary complexity. Here are four ways to do that. 

1. How to reduce friction in identity verification with a risk-based approach

Identity verification plays an essential role in protecting organizations and customers from fraud, but applying the same level of scrutiny to every interaction creates unnecessary friction.

“Customers struggle when we tell them that they need to upload some form of ID for verification purposes or a copy of a pay stub for income verification. We find that many customers just drop off.” —Director of IT, financial services

Rather than treating verification as a separate step, organizations should embed identity verification and document collection directly into digital workflows. This can include enabling customers to use existing, pre-verified profiles (like CLEAR opens in a new tab), securely upload required documents, and complete agreements within a connected experience. 

Organizations can take a risk-based approach to identity verification, tailoring authentication requirements to the level of risk associated with a particular transaction.

For financial services organizations, this means simplifying processes such as account opening and loan applications without compromising required Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) controls.

By connecting identity verification, document collection, and agreement completion, organizations can reduce unnecessary handoffs and make secure customer interactions easier to complete.

2. How to automate compliance (KYC, AML, HIPAA) behind the scenes

Customer-facing processes often involve multiple steps beyond collecting a signature, from verifying information and securing approvals, to maintaining audit trails and ensuring that sensitive information is handled appropriately. When those processes rely on manual work, they can create delays for employees and customers.

While nearly 50% of survey respondents cited delays in collecting signatures as the top challenge in digital agreement and form processes, the friction extends well beyond signing. Organizations also struggle with integration gaps (32%), form errors (29%), and meeting regulatory or compliance requirements (26%), highlighting opportunities to automate the checks, documentation, and handoffs that support compliant customer workflows.

In healthcare, even routine patient intake can involve multiple rounds of paperwork and follow-up. Connected, automated workflows can move much of that work behind the scenes, while building appropriate controls into the workflow to support HIPAA and other regulatory requirements. For banks and wealth management firms, automating workflows can help streamline client onboarding and account servicing, reduce NIGO rates, route information to the right people, and create consistent records for auditing and compliance.

Automating the steps surrounding signature can cut repetitive administrative work, enhance compliance, and actually help address the delays that CX leaders cite as their top challenge in digital agreement processes.

3. Make work easier for employees with connected systems

Customer experience and employee experience are closely connected. When employees have to switch between disconnected systems, manually transfer data, chase down approvals, or search for missing documents, customers feel the impact through longer wait times, repeated requests for the same information, and growing uncertainty for the business.

With 32% of organizations citing integration gaps and 23% reporting manual data re-keying between systems, connecting systems and automating routine steps can help employees move work forward more efficiently while reducing opportunities for human error.

Integrations can automatically transfer customer information between systems, eliminating manual data entry and reducing the risk of errors. Automated routing can send documents to the appropriate reviewers, and real-time data verification can identify missing or incorrectly formatted information before it creates downstream problems. Together, these capabilities make employees' jobs easier while helping customers move through processes with fewer interruptions.

4. Give customers visibility into what happens next

Trust comes from knowing what you're agreeing to and what happens next. Our research found that 55% of respondents cite ease of finding information as a top customer expectation, while 63% prioritize secure and trustworthy interactions. Yet customers can be left with questions at critical moments. “Did the organization receive it? Is additional information required? Who needs to approve it? How long will the process take?”

Top customer expectations

AI-powered agreement summaries and Q&A can help customers understand key terms and find answers directly within the signing experience. Once an agreement is submitted, centralized workspaces, automated notifications, and real-time status tracking, provide visibility needed to help eliminate those uncertainties.

Instead of contacting customer service for updates, customers can understand where they are in the process and what they need to do next. Visibility also benefits employees, who gain a centralized view of documents, approvals, outstanding tasks, and agreement status.

That transparency is especially important in high-stakes customer journeys such as opening a bank account, applying for a loan, completing patient intake, or providing consent for medical care.

Security and speed don’t have to compete

For organizations in regulated industries, security and compliance are non-negotiable. But that shouldn’t require customers to navigate slow, complicated processes.

The best digital experiences make security, identity verification, and compliance support part of the customer workflow itself, without requiring additional effort from the customer. They apply additional friction when risk warrants it, automate compliance-related tasks behind the scenes, connect information across systems, and give customers greater visibility into what’s happening. That creates a better balance: rigorous controls for the organization and a faster, simpler experience for the customer.

As customer expectations continue to rise, that balance will become increasingly important. Organizations that can protect sensitive information while minimizing unnecessary friction will be better positioned to increase completion rates, improve operational efficiency, and earn and maintain customer trust.

Learn more about how organizations are approaching security, compliance, automation, and customer experience in The State of Digital Customer Experience 2026. 

Read the latest insights in our State of Digital Customer Experience reportDownload the report

Frequently Asked Questions

What is digital identity verification?

Digital identity verification confirms that a person is who they claim to be during an online process, such as opening a bank account, applying for a loan, or completing patient intake. It helps protect organizations and customers from fraud. It works best when it's built into the agreement workflow, not treated as a separate step.

What is risk-based identity verification?

Risk-based identity verification tailors authentication requirements to the level of risk in a transaction. A routine interaction needs lighter checks, while a higher-risk one, such as a loan application, triggers additional verification. This avoids applying the same level of scrutiny to every interaction, which creates unnecessary friction and drop-off.

How can organizations reduce drop-off during identity verification?

Embed identity verification and document collection directly into the digital workflow. Customers can use existing, pre-verified profiles (like CLEAR), securely upload required documents, and complete the agreement in one connected experience. This matters because 40% of leaders reported abandonment rates above 10% for digital agreement or form processes.

How does automation support compliance in digital agreement processes?

Automation handles checks, documentation, and handoffs behind the scenes, so customers and employees don't have to. It can build in controls that help support KYC, AML, and HIPAA requirements and create consistent audit records. This addresses the 26% of organizations that cite regulatory or compliance requirements as a challenge.

What does NIGO mean, and how can automation reduce it?

NIGO stands for "not in good order." It describes an application or form submitted with missing or incorrect information that needs rework. Real-time data verification can flag missing or incorrectly formatted fields before they cause downstream problems, and automated routing sends documents to the right reviewers. Form errors affect 29% of organizations.

Why does employee experience affect customer experience?

When employees switch between disconnected systems, re-key data, or chase approvals, customers feel it through longer waits and repeated requests for the same information. In the research, 32% of organizations cited integration gaps and 23% cited manual data re-keying. Connected systems and automated routing help employees move work forward with fewer errors.