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November 2019 marks the 1-year anniversary of data privacy laws implemented the world over, including PIPEDA, GDPR and more. Customer privacy has never been more important for businesses and individuals than it is today.
According to a study by Salesforce Research, 59% of customers believe their personal information is vulnerable to a security breach. Worse still, 54% of customers do not believe that businesses have their best interests in mind. Customer trust is a key driver of customer loyalty and overall engagement so, when lacking, businesses may find themselves losing customers, sales and long-term revenue capabilities.
Trust: Key Driver in Customer Loyalty and Engagement
Prioritizing customer trust is not just a good moral initiative, it is also good for business. Research indicates that 95% of your customers are more likely to remain loyal to your organization if they have trust in the company brand. Further, 92% of customers are more likely to purchase additional products and services from businesses they trust.
With the advent and influencing power of social media, we must also consider that a whopping 93% of customers are more likely to recommend a customer they trust. This is a huge advantage to an organization who’s built a culture of trust into their brand, and a monumental obstacle for those who haven’t or for those who have lost customer trust as a result of a data breach or cyber event.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin in. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently”
Warren Buffet
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Understanding the Demand for Personalization
According to the same research study, over 53% of consumers say they expect their products and services to be delivered with an intimate level of personalization. Understandably so, any customer wants to know the organizations they do business with understands their individual needs and can tailor their services to indicate the same.
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The catch-22 presented in research is that 54% of customer feel the messages they receive from marketing ads are not nearly as relevant as they would prefer them to be. Overall, this suggests that businesses need to do a better job at personalizing their efforts for businesses and individuals.
In order to satisfy this requirement, businesses need to do a better job at understanding their customers’ needs on a more intimate level; templated email campaigns, scripted sales pitches and cookie-cutter efforts do anything but support this undertaking. It is important for businesses and individuals to believe they are begin treated as valued customers, not just numbers in line.
The ultimate take-away to consider from this is how can businesses meet this level of personalization if their customers do not trust them with the information required to generate this level of customization in the first place?
Building Trust in Your Brand
In the Packetlabs article, Protecting Your Brand, we establish that over 60% of Coca Cola’s value lies in its trusted, brand name. In order to earn said trust, though, requires a business to deliver value to their customers, otherwise, where is the motivation for them to share their personal information?
It is simply not enough for businesses to use a catchy value system, or purpose to indicate “we value the security and privacy of our customers.” Businesses need to demonstrate how they are doing that and ultimately let customers decide for themselves what information they are comfortable sharing. 92% of customers report they are more likely to trust a business if they are given a model of control over what information they ultimately share.
Uncoincidentally, personalization plays a major role in value for many business models. Gaining customer trust in your brand, therefore, is absolutely critical to an organization long term success in a competitive marketplace.
Transparency has always been a strong incentive in the development of trust. When a customer’s understand how their information is being used, and protected, they are 78-91% (baby boomers vs millennials) more likely to trust a company with their personal information, just so long as a business can explain how having this information will provide a better overall experience.
Creating a Company Culture of Trust and Transparency
It is clear that strong data security and compliance measures are vital for overcoming customer hesitancy in your brand. The onus is on businesses to take the time and efforts necessary to educate their customers about how they protect their information, why they should be trusted with that same information and what value a customer can expect to receive in exchange for providing that information.
In a world of data-driven customer loyalty, trust is everything.
For more information on how Packetlabs can help your organization deliver a superior level of transparency and data security, please feel free to contact us for more details on any of our customized service packages.