If you noticed an uptick in trust-related topics here and elsewhere, you’re in good company. We’ve been tracking the importance and value of consumer trust for some time but this feels like something different – an inflection point perhaps. To wit, this quote from one of the stories we’re covering today: “We also found an erosion of trust so profound as to be destabilizing, as if we see multiple bonfires are burning but we don’t trust the fire department enough to call it.” What’s a marketer to do?
Happy skimming.
LOYALTY
Salesforce Re-imagines Customer Loyalty
Quick Take: While customer loyalty programs are managed through the marketing department, they shouldn’t exist only within marketing programs.
Gannett on Purposeful Profitability
Quick Take: It all boils down to three simple Ps for me that builds that trust over time which eventually leads to loyalty. It’s your Purpose that defines your Why, your soul as a business. And then the Promise you make with your customers, your community which should ladder up to your Purpose. And lastly, the Product you deliver that ladders up to your Promise. (More on this topic.)
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Gartner Predicts
Quick Take: By 2025, 40% of customer service organizations will become profit centers by becoming de facto leaders in digital customer engagement.
Marketers Drive Customer Engagement Via Push Notifications
Quick Take: The research revealed that 78% of companies are using push notifications to keep their customers and website visitors engaged, with 150 respondents citing it as their most-used channel for improving the customer experience in 2020. Along with email (65%) and in-app messages (63%), respondents are sending between one and five notifications to their customers daily. (More on this topic.)
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
BMW Invests in Digital Transformation
Quick Take: BMW has committed to an annual marketing investment of hundreds of millions until 2025 to digitise its sales and marketing operations, as it looks to create the best customer experience in the premium automotive sector.
CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY
The New Consumer Faces an Anxious Future
Quick Take: We also found an erosion of trust so profound as to be destabilizing, as if we see multiple bonfires are burning but we don’t trust the fire department enough to call it. (More on this topic. Here too.)
Why Is It So Hard to Admit When We Are Wrong?
Quick Take: When our sense of self, our psychological projection of who we are, is being threatened, we defend – or even go on the attack. Right or wrong, win or lose, it becomes a zero-sum game. When our personal or social identity is at stake, we are more likely to distort reality and deny that we are wrong to defend such identities.
DATA PRIVACY
Google Confirms Fitbit Deal
Quick Take: Security expert Tanya Janca, known as @shehackspurple on Twitter, wrote: “In 2019 I made a huge deal about having you permanently delete my data before Google bought you, and your helpdesk said you erased me. Yet I just received an email from you at my private email address. How did this happen?”
More Than Half of Orgs That Store Customer Data in the Cloud had Security Incidents
Quick Take: The most common types of cloud security incidents in 2020 were phishing (reported by 40% of organizations), ransomware or other malware (24%), and accidental data leakage (17%).
Uber Emphasizes Customer Data Privacy Following Backlash Against Facebook
Quick Take: “Please note that we are not making any changes to the ways in which we use your personal data. We will continue to uphold our long-standing policy of not sharing or selling your data for third-party marketing or advertising purposes, unless we have your consent. For information on our privacy practices, please see our Privacy Notice.”
All the ways Microsoft Teams Tracks Users
Quick Take: “Since moving to full-time remote working, I can’t shake feeling my boss is using Teams to monitor and evaluate our productivity. Is this something I should be concerned about or am I paranoid?” (More on this topic.)
Governor Announces Proposal to Require Disclosure of Smart Devices’ Recording Capabilities
Quick Take: The Governor will propose legislation requiring the disclosure so that New Yorkers can make informed decisions when they choose to buy an internet-connected device that is capable of recording, and so that written warnings about recording are not hidden or written in small print. The bill would require that smart devices disclose that they are recording their owners before a device is set up, so that owners can manage their settings accordingly. (Editorial POV: These draconian measures will put next-to-impossble burdens on individuals and the brands they choose to deal with. But, to a large extent, we marketers, through decades of abusive consumer data practices, have done this to ourselves.)
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