According to a recent data privacy report, there seems to be a misconception of how organizations are making use of customer data and how the customers think businesses should use their data. Source: Shutterstock

According to a recent data privacy report, there seems to be a misconception of how organizations are making use of customer data and how the customers think businesses should use their data. Source: Shutterstock

What are customer expectations when it comes to privacy?

BUSINESSES everywhere are rapidly undergoing digital transformation to increase efficiency and optimize productivity and on the surface at least, embarking on the digital journey is almost risk-free.

However, a recent series of high profile breaches and hack of organizations revealed a massive liability that is associated with going digital that could lead to loss of consumer trust.

According to a recent data privacy report, there seems to be a misconception of how organizations are making use of customer data and how the customers think businesses should use their data.

The report which studied more than 6000 individuals from four countries- France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, found that in the event of a cyberattack, most of the customers tended to put the blame squarely on the companies, above even the hacker.

About half of the respondents meanwhile, feel that there are any which way businesses can use their data ethically.

Here are some of the customer expectation that businesses should be aware of based on the result of the study:

# 1 | Its all about the context

Consumers are aware that they leave behind a significant amount of digital trail and create vast amounts of data, but not all data is viewed the same way.

The respondents are generally most protective of data that could be used for identity theft or to commit fraud. About 78 percent of them are most concerned about their financial and banking data, followed by security (75 percent), identity  (70 percent), and medical (61 percent) information.

Businesses, therefore, must consider the context of consumer data when implementing data security measures and policies.

# 2 | It depends on the culture

Consumers living in different part of the world are affected differently by privacy policies. For example, EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to companies operating in the EU but not those in Asia and the rest of the world.

The change and variation in the data privacy policies are due to the cultural factors, current events and reactions to high profile hacks and data breaches.

Global businesses with operations that are spread throughout have to consider data protection measures that comply with all the different regulations as well as cultural sensitivities.

# 3 | Not quite personalized

Businesses often talk about using personal data to offer personalized services to consumers that can potentially drive up revenue.

However, consumers do not find that their that their data helps companies to provide them with custom made services to fit their need, according to the survey. Only 29 percent of the respondents felt otherwise.

And thus, businesses have to do better in engaging with their customer or target audience in communicating how the data is being obtained and how they are used to improve the customer experience.

Transparent engagement will improve both trusts, as well as help to develop more a service that consumer would appreciate and feel incentivized to share more data.

So, in a nutshell, businesses have to make protecting customer data as one of top business priority, and failure to do so might result in loss of consumer trust, which could be very difficult for companies to recover from.