Why Is Brand Rejection A Big Concern For Service-oriented Businesses?

How willing are consumers to give companies their information, and what concerns practise they have most sharing and protecting it? Many, information technology turns out, are amenable to sharing at to the lowest degree some personal information—if they see value in it for them.

How willing are consumers to share their data?

It'southward no secret that many companies rely heavily on consumer-generated information to inform many activities, from production development and strategic planning to targeted marketing campaigns. When the information is used effectively, nevertheless, it is the consumer who may ultimately benefit, equally it can enable companies to enhance the customer experience and provide innovative products and services. Just how willing are consumers to provide their information, and what concerns do they take most sharing and protecting information technology? In partnership with SSI, a global provider of data solutions and technology for consumer and business concern-to-business survey research, nosotros surveyed more than viii,500 consumers in six different countries¹ on how they feel about sharing personal data with businesses, comparison their answers with equivalent information collected in 2012 and 2014.^two Hither are the highlights of what we found.

Have consumer privacy concerns inverse over the last decade?

Data security remains a hot-push upshot, with a diverseness of well-known and respected companies reporting that the data of more than than 250 one thousand thousand of their consumers were stolen or compromised in 2014 alone.³ As continued products become more mutual, many industry observers expect consumer concerns over data security to rise farther. For example, emerging cyber risks—such as a hacker beingness able to control a center monitor—go along to rattle the health care industry and make headlines.⁴

Given the ever-present threat that their information may fall into the wrong hands, it's not surprising that 81 percent of our US respondents feel they accept lost control over the way their personal information are collected and used (effigy 1). What is surprising, though, is that—across the world—this sense of losing control has actually returned to a level shut to what it was in 1999 subsequently spiking in 2014. In fact, the latter seemed to be a watershed twelvemonth for information hacking and cybersecurity breaches, close on the heels of Edward Snowden'due south 2013 leak of classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to the Guardian.

With developments such as the repeal of protections requiring Internet service providers to obtain permission from consumers before sharing personal information, concerns effectually the collection and use of personal data remain high. However, the reversion to 2014 levels suggests that some people'southward level of concern can decrease instead of only going upward—providing companies with an opportunity to build consumer trust.

What tin can companies do to reassure consumers?

Our report finds that while consumers land that they want more protection and security, the reality is that they may be more than willing to provide their personal information if companies:

Are transparent most how they intend to use consumer data
Let consumers to easily opt out of data sharing
Provide brief and readily understandable privacy policies and agreements

Historic period matters—and then does the perception of receiving value

Because how many experience that they've lost control of their ain data, one might call up that some consumers adopt not to share information with anyone at all. However, most appear to be at to the lowest degree somewhat more open up; for example, more than than 2-thirds of our respondents were willing to share social media activity with family and friends. More interestingly for companies, US consumers' willingness to share certain information—specifically, browsing history and social media activeness—with companies with whom they do business organization has more than doubled since 2014 (figure 2).

A closer await shows that this willingness to share data with companies varies past age. While approximately one-half the consumers in each age group say they sometimes provided data online, younger consumers surveyed were more probable to provide simulated information on websites than older consumers. Younger generations besides take more protective actions, such as adjusting privacy settings on their mobile devices, than older generations (effigy 3)—which could also explain why Gen Z expressed the greatest feeling of control over their information.

Across the board, consumers surveyed also appear more willing to share data when they feel they become some value in return. Lxx-9 per centum of our respondents agreed that they would be willing to share their data if there was a articulate benefit for them. This means that companies should consider thinking most giving consumers a render on data.⁵ Whether it is something that entertains, informs, or rewards the consumer, companies should sympathize that many consumers may provide information in exchange for something that benefits them.

What tin companies do to encourage consumers to share data more freely?

The good news from these results is that the consumers surveyed announced increasingly willing to share information with companies—if at that place's something in it for them. Here'due south what organizations tin do:

Make information technology piece of cake for consumers to choose what they share or do not share
Offer valuable benefits to those consumers who choose to share information
Customize the arrangement'south data-gathering strategy to different age segments

Consumers don't forgive and forget

While the consumers we surveyed are more willing to share data if they run into some benefits, they won't hesitate to take action against companies involved in a data breach, whether they've personally experienced a alienation or heard about it in the media. On average, 1 in four consumers will take cautionary deportment after hearing of a alienation to digitally protect themselves and avoid future information breaches. While industry observers have long suspected as much, this survey is the start fourth dimension nosotros have heard this direct from consumers.

The actions that consumers take in these situations can range from cautionary, such as disabling cookies or non downloading certain apps, to more extreme castigating deportment, such as not purchasing products (figure 4). While punitive actions may more directly affect companies, cautionary actions tin can also hinder companies from edifice consumer trust and offering better solutions.

What can companies do to help keep consumers' trust?

Enforce privacy measures to forbid breaches in the first place:
- Encrypt data at rest
- Destroy consumer data when not needed
Systematically command the damage later a breach has occurred by identifying causes and implementing remedies that hasten recovery:^half-dozen
- Identify affected systems and isolate them
- Assemble all available bear witness, and analyze it to determine cause, severity, and impact
- Document how the incident came to lite—who reported information technology and how he or she discovered the problem—and report findings to relevant stakeholders
- Assess the possibility of insider involvement
- Strengthen network security and improve protocols
- Raise monitoring to mitigate the risk of future breaches
Develop an integrated, enterprise-level arroyo to data governance, and ensure the leader of this initiative is a C-level executive

Consumers are less likely than ever to consummate feedback surveys—thanks to privacy concerns

Consumer surveys are typically an important, time-tested practise for companies seeking opinions on current products, potential line extensions, other new offerings, and overall make awareness. That'southward why it's not great news for companies that many consumers are increasingly rejecting market enquiry survey requests: Fifty-5 percent of our U.s. respondents said they declined to take a survey over the past twelvemonth.

Yet, at the same fourth dimension, many consumers proceed to say that companies should be soliciting their feedback, with 75 percentage of our respondents saying companies should do then twice a yr. If the majority of consumers are open up to companies asking for their opinion, why is the survey rejection rate then loftier?

Privacy concerns were the most mutual reason—by a considerable margin—that our United states of america respondents gave for failing to participate in a survey (figure 5). Among consumers for whom privacy was not the principal reason, motives for deciding not to have a survey once again differed by age group. Younger consumers tended to survey requests more often than older consumers because they weren't interested in the topic or didn't have the time, while older consumers were more likely than younger ones to be put off by a request to download an app or software.

Another possible reason for the higher survey rejection rate is that consumers may be suffering from "survey fatigue," partly because of the exponential rise in survey requests in the Cyberspace era. One survey firm conducts about a million surveys per month, while another conducts lx million surveys every year—a mind-extraordinary 175,000 per twenty-four hours.⁷ This possibility can make it all the more than important for consumer businesses to craft their surveys carefully, offer respondents something of value in render, and explore alternative ways of gathering information from consumers. That said, with privacy existence the main sticking bespeak, nothing tin can supersede the need to reassure consumers that their information volition be protected and used appropriately when companies ask them to have surveys.

What can companies do to encourage consumers to take surveys?

Improve survey design:
- Limit the number of surveys you ask your consumers to take
- Limit the number of questions to 20 or fewer
- Keep questions piece of cake to understand and quick to answer
- Ensure that the survey tin can run on any device
Modify survey content:
- Focus questions more on the transaction rather than the consumer's personal details
- Request feedback on how to improve data privacy
Offer survey incentives:
- Give a token award to consumers who complete the survey
- Communicate potential outcomes—such every bit ways the survey information are used to improve offerings—to consumers

Don't be conceited

While our results point that younger generations are currently less concerned about data privacy and more than willing to share data, that doesn't hateful that privacy concerns volition get less of an issue for companies as younger consumers enter the task market, build financial equity, and make more fiscal transactions online. If consumer-related information breaches continue or increase, younger consumers may have even greater measures to protect their personal information—making the efforts of companies to build a relationship with them that much harder.

The bottom line: An important style companies tin build and maintain consumer trust is to both put in place proactive data security and privacy measures and to engage in a transparent, ongoing dialogue with consumers on data privacy.

Acquire more than well-nigh Deloitte's Center for Industry Insights

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