How to maintain trust in the holiday cyberthreat season

Dive Brief:

The holiday season is one of the most prevalent times for cyberattacks and consumers are concerned about the safety of their data as they go about their shopping, according to an Infobip survey of 1,000 adults published Thursday.
Two-thirds of Americans believe their information is more at risk during the holiday shopping season, and nearly one-quarter of adults are uncomfortable providing payment information to retailers online.
The survey findings underscore the pressing need for businesses to implement robust cybersecurity measures to maintain customer trust, said Infobip Chief Business Officer Ivan Ostojić.

Dive Insight:

As cyberthreats increase over the holidays, it's all the more important for businesses to maintain consumer trust, reassuring wary consumers that their data is safe. Not doing so puts them at risk of losing customers.

“Customer trust is a huge driver of brand and business value,” Ostojić said in an email to CX Dive. “According to our research, customer trust is [a] main driver of customer connection with a brand, leading to more comfort in doing business, leading to higher loyalty and ultimately revenue.”

Trust, Ostojić said, also leads to more data sharing, which in turn allows businesses to get more insights from their customers and drive better personalization.

Website familiarity significantly influences trust, with 2 in 5 consumers saying their comfort in sharing personal payment details depends on the site.

Asked what made shoppers feel safer when sharing their data online, nearly two-thirds said that they felt safest when purchasing from well-known companies and 15% said when a retailer’s website looks reputable.

Ostojić says that to gain and maintain consumers’ trust, retailers need to have clear and transparent data policies, inform consumers how their data will be used, and provide an option for consumers to opt out of data collection or delete their data.

But none of that matters without good cybersecurity infrastructure.

“Retailers have to have a robust enterprise-grade technology stack that integrates the newest security infrastructure,” he said, and provide “explicit communication to consumers about it.”

Analyst firm Forrester encourages companies to prepare for the cyberthreat holiday season by raising awareness among staff about the threat of cyberattacks, implementing strong password use, and instituting incident response plans for when attacks do occur.