The State of Digital Trust

To gain and maintain consumer trust, brands need to go back to basics. People care most about brands doing what they say they’re going to do: 32% of Americans say service reliability — meaning products are as expected, items arriving on time and in good condition — is the most important attribute for a digital brand (any brand that has an online presence through websites, apps, social media, video, etc.) to be trusted, and this sentiment is consistent across countries.

Website reliability and product legitimacy also matter. Americans’ biggest concerns when purchasing something online include not knowing if a website is legitimate (54%) and poor product images (43%). After brands meet those basic requirements, consumers care most about security and data privacy — 23% of Americans say good security (e.g. MFA offerings, secure log-in options) is critical to brand trust.

We all know brands collect our personal data, but to what extent do we care and how does it impact which brands we choose to trust?

In looking at how the numbers shake out across the globe, we found that countries are split when it comes to the value they place on data privacy. For example, 42% of Americans and 47% of UK respondents say data mishandling or selling would cause them to lose trust in a brand — far more than respondents in Italy (29%), France (23%), Japan (29%), and Spain (28%). Older Americans have a lower tolerance for poor data handling: 50% of 55+ year-olds, compared to 26% of 18-24-year-olds, rank intentional misuse or selling of personal data as enough to make them not trust a brand.

The pandemic has also created an atmosphere of mistrust due to the rising number of security threats as hackers took advantage of the increase in remote workers. Phishing incidents rose 220% during the height of the pandemic, and over 86,600+ domain names were classified as high-risk or malicious domains between last March and April. We saw a 2,000% increase in malicious files with “Zoom” in the name along with a massive ransomware spike in the first half of 2020.

Given the increase in threats, it isn’t surprising that 47% of Americans have become more cautious about sharing their information online since the pandemic began. Of this group, 37% say their caution is due to increased online interactions with people they haven’t met before. Another 37% point to media coverage on the topic of providing your digital data to anyone online since COVID, and 24% say they’ve further researched data collection terms and conditions during the pandemic. When asked which threats Americans feel most at risk of, identity theft ranks the highest (26%), followed by data breaches (20%), malware (15%), and deep fakes (4%). Americans

While people care about working for socially responsible companies — and purpose-driven companies have 40% higher levels of workforce retention than competitors – CSR isn’t the most important factor impacting trust. 10% of American respondents think championing environmental initiatives and demonstrating support of social issues is the most important attribute for gaining trust.

We saw a substantial rise in brands speaking out about social issues in 2020, and while many companies agree they have a responsibility to use their influence for good, consumers aren't too concerned. In fact, only 3% of Americans say a brand not taking a stand on a social issue would cause them to lose trust. Similarly, a robust social presence doesn’t make Americans more likely to trust brands — only 4% of respondents say this is the most important factor for building trust. While American millennials and Gen Z care slightly more about a brand's social media pages when building trust with them, the numbers are still very low at 11% (ages 18-24) and 7% (ages 25-34).

Loss of consumer trust can wreak havoc on a brand’s reputation and overall business success. Our data found that trust in our digital world directly correlates to consumer purchase decisions, with three in four US respondents unlikely to purchase from a digital brand they don’t trust. This percentage increases as age increases: 53% of 18-24 year olds are unlikely to buy something from a brand they don’t trust, compared to 89% of 55+ year olds. Why? Millennials and Gen Z have grown up dependent on technology, and early exposure to handing over data means they may be more comfortable taking chances now. American women are also more cautious: 53% say they’re not at all likely to buy from a brand they don’t trust compared to 45% of men.

Losing trust in a digital brand looks different for everyone, but many consumers take drastic measures after a data breach or misuse of data.

For more than half Americans (55%), changing user settings (changing a password, account email address, etc.) is enough. Others go much further and cut ties with the company completely — nearly half (47%) permanently stop using the company’s services, 37% delete their account with the company, and 37% delete the app from their device. Only 3% don’t take any action. The repercussions of brands requiring consumers to hand over too much personal information to sign up for their services is also high — 74% of US respondents say they’d be likely to abandon the sign-up process for a website or app if it had a time-consuming onboarding process and required lots of personal information and security details. In general, respondents in the US take more actions after a data breach than other countries in almost every category.

Some online experiences grew in popularity during COVID and will stay popular even when it’s over, while others didn’t catch on with consumers. Grocery delivery services like Instacart have seen a massive uptick in users looking to avoid in-person crowds during the pandemic, and our data confirms this growth: 16% of Americans say they’re ordering groceries online once a week or more, compared to 8% before the pandemic, and 37% ordering once a month or more, compared to 22% before. After COVID, consumers expect to continue grocery shopping online, but not as frequently — 12% will order once a week or more, and 32% will order once a month or more.

Virtual doctor’s appointments also spiked during the pandemic. 73% of US consumers had never seen the doctor virtually before COVID, which fell to only 48% of consumers never attending doctor’s appointments online. Only 40% say they’ll exclusively stick to in-person appointments post-pandemic.

And this year’s begrudged winner: video conferencing with family and friends. While this one saw a massive spike during the pandemic, people are less enthusiastic about continuing virtual get-togethers after COVID. 55% of Americans socialized via video conference at least once a month during the pandemic, but only 46% expect this to continue. Despite how much consumers want to return to in-person coffee dates, analysts predict Zoom’s popularity and massive growth will continue once COVID ends — there are untapped opportunities to address even more use cases for industries like healthcare, and office reopenings could provide more momentum due to competitive displacements.

While fitness studios quickly pivoted to Zoom offerings, our data shows the market for online exercise may be limited to Peloton. 78% of Americans never attended an online exercise class before the pandemic, and 73% still don’t despite many fitness centers shutting down during the pandemic.

Virtual leisure experiences never took off either: the percentage of consumers who participated in one weekly stayed at 4% before and during the pandemic, while monthly users increased slightly from 10% to 15%. With so much time behind the screen already during COVID, virtual leisure experiences didn’t provide the escape many needed.

Beyond looking at which online experiences took off and which will go with the pandemic, we also tracked success by industry and asked American consumers which industries successfully moved their services online. Technology companies handled the transition best (32%), followed by retail (29%) and food and beverage (21%). Businesses in these industries likely already had an online presence before COVID and were able to expand or pivot some of their offerings rather than start from scratch. Respondents say industries that hinge on face-to-face communication and physical services lag, like tourism (7%) and real estate (12%).

Remote work is the new normal for many Americans. As of December 2020, 25% reported always working from home, 20% often do, and 19% sometimes do. According to a recent study, at least 16% of employees will remain at-home workers after COVID is over.

Adjusting to a new home office and new coworkers (hello pandemic puppies!) in 2020 meant getting used to a new set of collaboration and work tools to stay connected to colleagues while dispersed. Even though some workers may have never used certain work tools before, our data shows many of these tools met their security expectations. When asked which digital channels US respondents considered most trustworthy, work apps come in at number two. While government websites were named the most trusted in the US at 23%, trust levels are still far behind other countries. 41% of respondents in the UK and Australia rank government websites as the most trusted, and 37% in the Netherlands do.

With so many work apps coming onto the scene to support productivity and connectedness, we wanted to know which ones consumers trust most with their data. 22% of Americans say websites used for work, including search engines and online databases (like Google) are most secure, while 13% select communication apps used for work (Zoom, Slack). These companies have worked hard to build and maintain trust — and this data shows that focus made a positive impact.

Consumers’ trust in work apps may be due to organizations stepping up and adopting the right tools to keep their workforces secure. Since the pandemic, 37% of American consumers say the organizations they work for have implemented new security applications and technology, 30% say they added more internal security training, and 14% brought in third-party security measures.