Why customers are reluctant to share data online and what you can do about it [Q&A]
Brands are increasingly focussed on providing a good digital experience for their customers, yet many people remain reluctant to share their information with websites.
What are the reasons behind this reluctance? And what can enterprises do to overcome it? We talked to Josh Koenig, co-founder and chief strategy officer at SaaS web platform Pantheon, to find out.
BN: What makes a positive or negative digital experience for consumers, and what are the knock-on effects?
JK: Companies want to deliver extraordinary user experiences through their sites -- according to data from Hanover Research, 86 percent of marketing and IT professionals rank it as the site's most important job. They want sites that are user-friendly (87 percent), work fast (81 percent) and support the contact methods they prefer (66 percent). Consumers want to interact with trustworthy brands, and how they feel about a website is essential to building that trust.
Digital interactions have just as much potential to erode customer trust as they do to build it. For example, Hanover Research found that more than half of respondents (51 percent) stopped engaging with a brand altogether following a negative interaction. Poor experiences occur when brands don't consider the consumers' experience -- the top complaints were being spammed with emails (52 percent), unhelpful customer service (44 percent), issues with a brand's website (41 percent), difficulty cancelling a subscription (37 percent), and inability to interact through their preferred communication method (32 percent).
However, customers are willing to grant second chances -- 81 percent of consumers said they would buy from a brand again if they improved their act. If these customers do come back, brands need to be ready to deliver on customer expectations and build digital experiences based on the signals customers provide.
BN: Why do some consumers share their data, and why do others avoid it where they can at all costs?
JK: Customers will share their data when they trust the brand, and they value the benefits that personalization can offer -- 65 percent of customers will provide their data in return for discounts or special offers, as long as those offers match their interests. Alongside this, they like the convenience that it can provide, and that it can improve the quality of the service they receive. Time-saving features like auto-filling forms are typically well-received.
However, while personalization is often lauded as a way for brands to improve digital experiences, it can unintentionally drive some customers away. For example, nearly half of consumers (48 percent) say they use guest checkout in their online transactions to avoid providing data to the brands they buy from, and 42 percent won't create a user profile. Customers that dislike personalization avoid sharing their data because they don't want to be tracked, or because they don't trust that companies will keep their data secure.
BN: What is the impact of getting this wrong?
JK: Consumers are incredibly discerning about when and how they interact with brands, and bad website experiences can easily affect those relationships. One misstep can turn a customer away in a fraction of a second, so you have to be attuned to delivering online experiences that earn brand trust. Miss out on that experience, and companies can easily leave websites and abandon brands -- more than half (51 percent) of customers have had one bad experience that made them swear off a company and go elsewhere.
From a data perspective, there is so much opportunity to read the signals customers give us throughout the customer journey -- what they look at and how they use the services that are available. This first party data will become more important to companies as third party cookies are deprecated in the near future. Marketers have to meet customers where they are, remove friction from their online experiences and inspire confidence, deliver value and build trust with customers.
BN: How can IT and website teams manage this better?
JK: For companies that want to improve their performance around websites and digital experiences, looking at WebOps (website operations) can help. This involves all the teams that touch upon the website and the tasks that they carry out in their work, and helps them to deliver on their goals and collaborate effectively. Marketers and IT teams both want to provide customers with that great experience, but they have different goals in mind.
Teams might have competing priorities and gaps in their collaboration that lead to significant challenges as they navigate their organizations' digital efforts. Despite somewhat conflicting goals, everyone can unite around a few commonalities: efficiency and agility. Improving processes should help firms to update their sites more quickly. Streamlining operations should make roles clearer and more defined between the teams. The ultimate aim should be to help improve the productivity of web teams, foster better collaboration and align websites towards their shared goals.
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