SOC2 Won’t Close the Deal. Customer Trust Will

You’ve secured your SOC 2 report. You’ve passed the audit. Yet, your prospects keep asking questions about your security posture.

Why? Because a SOC 2 audit and attestation report is not the same as proof or trust that you can protect their business for the long haul.

Why SOC 2 Alone Falls Short

SOC 2 is often the first cybersecurity credential that companies, especially in the US, pursue. It’s a recognized compliance standard developed by the AICPA that assesses a service organization’s control regarding security, and any of the other four “Trust Services Criteria” including Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. 

For many organizations, achieving SOC 2 is table stakes. Your company sets the security bar in policy, prepares according to the framework for an audit, hires an external auditor, and if you meet the requirements, you receive a clean attestation report and summary letter.

However, we see this pattern too often:

1. To close the deal, a company promises a prospect they’ll be SOC 2 compliant within 12 months and contractually agrees to maintain a number of security controls.
2. The company buys a compliance tool, adopts the minimum SOC 2 templates plus any contractually required controls beyond the minimum, produces evidence that the organization meets this compliance bar for a point in time audit (SOC 2, Type 1) or maintains the controls for a 3-6 month period (SOC 2, Type 2), passes the audit, and receives their attestation letter. Their actual security program starts and ends here—during the security audit. 
3. Six months later, the customer seeks an update or returns with follow-up security questions and demands, pulling IT, engineering, and executives into an exhausting scramble for answers.
4. Now, the sales win is a delivery nightmare. The relationship with the customer frays and leadership realizes they need to build and sustain an actual security program. 

The takeaway is that although SOC 2 is a valuable proof that you document what you do and do what you documented: 

1. Clearing the minimum bar often is not enough for your enterprise buyers.
2. Investing in SOC 2 compliance without actually building a sustained security program that supports your attestation is at best kicking the can down the road and at worst an intentional shell game with your external stakeholders.  

An organization might be able to muscle through SOC 2 without plans or resources committed to sustain the included security activities and controls, all in the service of closing a deal. However, regardless of an organization’s intention, it’s ultimately a compliance trap that can frustrate your customers and your employees and erode trust all around. 

Seize Your Security Narrative

When prospects hand you their 200-question security spreadsheet or send you to their vendor risk portal, it’s an opportunity to understand what matters to them.

If you don’t own that process and know whether, how and why your organization meets or does not need to meet those requirements, you’ll end up agreeing to terms you don’t fully understand or can’t realistically meet. That’s an easy way to turn closed deals into operational headaches. 

Building and maintaining customer trust starts with seizing your security narrative. Owning your security narrative means:

• Understanding and speaking the language of your buyers’ security needs.
• Articulating your security program proactively, including how and why it reduces risks and suits your business and operations. 
• Showing how your controls address your buyers’ needs and reduce the risks associated with their use of your product.
• Being clear about what you will and won’t agree to, backed by the correct rationale and a security program that is at least in ascendance if not fully implemented.

Done right, owning your security narrative can shorten sales cycles, build confidence, and protect relationships long after the initial contract is signed. You stop checking the box and suffering the reactionary cycle of emergency efforts and instead start positioning your security posture as a reason to buy. 

Turn Security into a Revenue Enabler

The best security programs are revenue enablers, not cost centers. They inspire trust in the buyers you’re targeting, and create confidence in your organization. They can be proactively and expertly communicated via a Customer Trust program.

That’s why IOmergent’s assessments include a focus on Customer Trust. The assessment helps you understand where your security stands now, and includes an analysis of your customers’ requirements and your related commitments. It then helps you build a program that aligns with and can be sustained by your business and helps you communicate it to your buyers in terms they understand. We can also rapidly develop sufficient knowledge of your business and operations to effectively represent you in security conversations, bridging the knowledge gaps between your team and your prospect’s third-party risk experts.

In the end, your enterprise customers have teams of experts that know whether you are ticking the box with a minimum SOC 2 and the use of your platform requires acceptance of risk or you’re driving your security forward and inspiring confidence regardless of your SOC 2 attestation.   

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