Consumers are worried their data is not being treated with the care it deserves.
A new survey has suggested that better use of technology could make consumers trust brands more when it comes to giving out their personal data.
The poll, carried out by Avaya and Sabio, discovered that banks come top in a list of organisations that people trust the least with sensitive information, while mobile phone operators and even retailers fared quite badly, Computer Weekly reports.
This can be very harmful to business reputations, as six million respondents said they have stopped doing business with a firm because they were worried about whether or not it was secure.
Indeed, 46 per cent suspected financial institutions are likely to have suffered high-level security breaches.
However, this was mostly because they assumed humans were more likely to make errors than IT systems – many were reassured by the presence of technology, with 81 per cent saying they would be happier entering passwords on a keypad than saying them out loud.
"By focusing on the three ‘S’s – service, speed and security – brands can improve customer lifetime value, strengthen security and increase brand loyalty,” said Simon Culmer, managing director of the UK part of Avaya.
Many consumers said they get frustrated when it takes them too long to get their query answered, so companies could find it useful to implement document scanning and offsite storage of their paperwork.
Dajon Data Management is able to keep documents in the cloud, but they can be called up very quickly when a customer requests them and this data mining could be crucial in keeping people happy.
It comes after Deloitte found that many organisations may be too blase about data protection, with 88 per cent of firms in the technology, media and telecommunications industries assuming they would be vulnerable to a threat such as hacking.
Some 70 per cent of survey respondents told Deloitte they think mistakes made by employees lacking in security awareness will be a top source, although only 48 per cent said they offered training to help spread awareness of dangers that could come as a result of lost memory sticks and other issues.