According to a recent Jupiter Research survey, sharing personal information is the number-one reason consumers do not complete their purchases online. Quite understandably, they’re worried about their privacy — a concern that many smaller retailers with a lot on their plate tend to overlook. Tsk, tsk.
So what should you do? Do what I did, get the skinny on best practices for online retailers from one of the leaders in online privacy, Fran Maier, CEO of TRUSTe. (You know TRUSTe, it’s the one that gives you that nifty privacy graphic for your website, like the one on the left.)
You say you don’t know Maier? Well, it always pays to go to the top. Here are some pearls of wisdom she shared with me the other day:
- Hold onto your current customers tightly. That means better insights and better targeted messages, promotions and appeals. But it’s important to gather information about your customers in the right way. Collect data about your customers while staying compliant with privacy obligations, to gather more accurate data about your customers and ultimately serve them better.
- Enhance privacy. Don’t let trust or privacy stand in the way of your brand reputation. Participating in a certification program like TRUSTe’s and displaying a trustmark on your online retail site shows your customers that their information is safe and protected. In a tough economy, many online retailers are tempted to cut corners and take less-than-ethical approaches to increasing sales: Make sure you’re the one who’s trusted.
- Make your privacy statement both easy to read and easy to find. When your privacy statement is in straightforward language, your customer is more likely to feel confident, stay on your site and make a purchase.
- If data spills, contact the trustmark organization immediately. Take the appropriate steps if there is a security breach; organizations like TRUSTe, are able to track those complaints so you can respond to your customers quickly.
- Take advantage of your company’s reputation. Is your reputation rock-solid? If so, now is the time, with modest investment, to capitalize on that differentiator. If it isn’t, then your competition will have an easier time luring your customers away and converting new prospective customers.
Hop to it, the holidays are a’ comin’.
