Trust paves the way for consumer confidence and loyalty

9 December 2021 | 109 Shares

Source: SAP Customer Experience

According to new research, consumer trust over an organization’s data practices is growing into a critical factor in their buying decisions and brand loyalty.

A recent survey in 12 countries found that many respondents identify as “Privacy Actives” – those who care about privacy, are willing to protect it, and have already acted by switching companies or providers over data practices or policies. According to the Cisco 2021 consumer privacy survey, 32% of respondents met the criteria to be Privacy Actives, up from 29% a year ago. Nearly half of them, at 47%, decided to leave “significant” relationships, with “significance” defined by how long they had been doing business with a company.

Data Solutions

Source: SAP Customer Experience

The study, surveying 2,600 adults across Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, UK, and the US, also found 86% expressed that they at least care about data privacy, protecting others, and wanting more control over their data. In addition, there was a generally positive sentiment to privacy laws and regulations, though public awareness of this type of governance is relatively low. Among such laws and regulations are the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU; the Privacy Act 1988 (PA) in Australia; Cyber Security Law (CSL) in China; the Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB) in India; Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais (LGPD) in Brazil; and Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) in Japan.

The GDPR went into effect in 2018 and is currently the most onerous privacy and security law globally. In July, Amazon was fined a record €746 million (US$888 million) over non-compliance and antitrust issues in Europe. In September 2021, Whatsapp was issued the second-largest fine at €225 million ($267 million) for not being completely clear with what it does with the EU customers’ data.

Data Solutions

Source: SAP Customer Experience

Therefore, consumers’ rights to privacy are a critical honoured recognised business priority, not just because of the risk of hefty fines from stricter regulatory enforcement but also as a cornerstone of earning people’s trust and loyalty. According to the “Trust is imperative in the customer experience era” report, gaining and sustaining consumer trust goes beyond legal compliance. It involves building consumer confidence through consistent and persistent demonstration of the organization’s trustworthiness, its ethical practices, and competent delivery of its products or services.

DAIMANI AG, the world’s first hospitality marketplace for VIP hospitality experiences, recognizes this need. It applies a solution that enhances the customer experience by simplifying the buying process while supporting local data security and reliability.  “For DAIMANI, it’s clear that the customer data is not ours; it doesn’t belong to the event; it’s the customer’s data that he should be able to decide what happens with his data. SAP allows us to handle the whole consent management, and it’s an essential solution for us,” said Christian Nilson, COO of DAIMANI.

SAP was founded in 1972 and established the gold standard for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. With the acquisition of Gigya Inc. in 2017, SAP extended its ability to develop industry-leading business software into the customer data arena. Its portfolio includes cloud-based Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), Enterprise Consent and Preference Management (ECPM), and – most recently – Customer Data Platform (CDP) solutions.

“With SAP, the customer would not realize that we’re using it because what it enables us to do is to make the whole buying process very seamless and very individual. But, on the other hand, for the rights holders, they will experience an increase in sales, increase in markets, and that’s the beauty of it,” Nilson added. DAIMANI now supports 30 different payment methods and 70 different currencies, boosting client satisfaction and handling customer data securely wherever they reside – Australia, China, Europe, Russia, or the United States – with centralised and transparent data assets made possible by SAP.

It is possible to extract business intelligence from such data assets without compromising consumers’ data privacy. The key is to build customer relationships based on a foundation of permission-based, first-party data and create a governance model for ensuring the purpose of the customer data is always honoured. This focus on first-party customer data represents a significant shift in the technology world. Even Google is ending its third-party cookies functionality with more privacy-focused alternatives such as  FLoCs (federated learning of cohorts).

Data Solutions

Source: SAP Customer Experience

This trend speaks to a broader truth about customer engagement strategy. The myth of the 360-degree customer profile is being debunked before our very eyes. “The better strategy is to focus on use cases and figure out how to get the trusted, accurate, relevant, real-time customer data for those instances,” said Esteban Kolsky, chief evangelist of SAP Customer Experience.

So, how can brands best achieve this improved focus? “For real-time engagement, software solutions need to be agile. However, they’re not agile if they’re required to analyze massive amounts of data at every turn. So instead, today’s CDP solutions do the hard work of unifying the data, analyzing it, and surfacing the relevant insights based on use cases,” said Sergey Krayniy, head of product development for customer data solutions from SAP.

SAP has over 100 solutions covering all business functions and has over 440,000 customers in more than 180 countries. Today, 77% of all business transactions worldwide touch an SAP system.

Its customer data solutions have generated impressive results for businesses. For example, FranklinCovey – a company that provides organizations and individuals with executive coaching, methodologies, and educational resources – raised its renewal rates by 30% while addressing data privacy requirements in 150 different countries. Meanwhile, Australian publishing company News DNA experienced 8x improved customer data capture and uses a single cloud platform to manage over 15 million user base identities across ten digital and print publishing properties.

SAP was born with a vision for the business potential of technology, starting with its pioneering of the ERP standard. It continues to help the world run better by building on innovation and trust to serve both businesses and their customers.

Explore the potential of the customer data solutions from SAP by reading more about its CDP and watching this CIAM demo.