Products – 🔴 Red Button Data

Aug 5 2024

Air Travel is a miserable experience these days

I have done a fair bit of travel in the past six months both in and out of North America, across Asia and in and out of Europe. The carriers have included Alaska Airlines, AirAsia, British Airways, Finnair, Ryanair, Scoot, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines. I have also booked flights for others on British Airways with an Aer Lingus codeshare and Icelandair.

I have to say that with pretty much all of them, the experience of online booking and then checking in has been pretty awful and the costs of the tickets pretty steep. In terms of value for money, I am frustrated. In terms of how the value has declined further since COVID during which many airlines received governmental survival incentives and gouged the few remaining passengers, I am even more disappointed.

My earliest recollection of air travel was in the mid 1970s, a Vickers Viscount, the plane’s top cruising speed was about 500kph at an altitude of 25,000ft. I know these things because in-flight, as a youth, I was allowed into the cockpit to see the plane on a night run while it was in flight. Seating was a 3 + 2, with a single aisle running down the plane. The plane had gigantic oval porthole windows.

Airline tickets were a waxy carbonized booklet, often typed up with the details and the boarding pass was according to souvenir evidence, hand written. You were required to confirm your flight the day before departure by calling the airline and at check-in, luggage was weighed on a beam scale. With the country and era in which I was traveling, passengers had to explicitly identify their luggage on the tarmac before it was loaded into the hold for safety reasons. Family members stood on an open balcony at in the airport building and waved to you as you walked across the tarmac and climbed the stairs.

My next freshest memory is my first long haul flight to London in 1980; mostly unremarkable, aside from the fact that we left late at night and seemingly arrived in the morning despite flying for what seemed like a whole day. This journey was on a significantly more substantial aircraft, a Boeing 707 which flew into London Gatwick. The flight was not particularly memorable aside from the fact that I distinctly remember the plane had a smoking section!

Air travel was a luxury for many at least up until the late 1980’s. For us, tickets were bought by my parents on a layaway and planned as far as up to a year in advance. But these days, flying somewhere even only for a couple of hours is pretty much available to a broad swathe of people and is certainly not a luxurious experience. If you think commercial air travel is glamorous, you should think again.

The Golden Age of Air Travel

Post WWII Airlines competed to provide exceptional service, and passengers were treated to a level of comfort and luxury that seemingly has become a distant memory to all except those flying for obscene amounts of money.

Flying was an experience savoured, marked by exotic meals served on fine china, attentive cabin crew, and spacious seating. Passengers often dressed-up, adding to the atmosphere of sophistication and excitement.

Flying was an exotic experience accompanied by arrival at some far flung destination. The travellers would board these flying machines with a sense of anticipation, ready to enjoy the amenities that came as a part of their ticket. Long haul flights provided a collective cinema experience, passengers, especially the younger ones, were given keepsakes, games, puzzles, crayons etc and music or audio programming was piped to every seat. The experience was designed to make passengers feel some kind of privilege, a far cry from today’s reality.

The Shift in Airline Economics

As the airline industry evolved, so did its economic landscape. The deregulation of the airline industry in the late 1970s in the United States marked a significant turning point. It led to increased competition among airlines, which ultimately drove ticket prices down. While this made air travel more accessible to the general public, it also set the stage for a shift in how airlines operated. US Jimmy Carter Airline Deregulation Act, signed in 1978 witnessed the cost of air travel going down accompanied by a decline in the quality of service. Other regions would soon follow suit.

To remain competitive, airlines began to adopt cost-cutting measures that would fundamentally change the passenger experience. The focus shifted from providing an exceptional journey to maximizing profits. As a result, many of the amenities that once defined air travel were eliminated or reduced. The once-coveted in-flight meals were replaced by military rations-like snack boxes. And complimentary beverages have all but evaporated.

The Decline of Comfort and Service

Today, the experience of flying is characterized by discomfort and a complete lack of personal service.

Airlines have crammed more seats into aircraft, this has led to reduced seat pitch, reduced legroom and narrower aisles as described in the WSJ article The Incredible Shrinking Plane Seat .

An average economy class seat now offers less space than it did decades ago, seat width is down as much as four inches over the last 30 years. Seat pitch has shrunk from about 35 inches to 31 and in some cases as little as 28 inches – on some airlines, seats have NO Pitch at all — allowing airlines to add more seats they can then sell.

Many passengers now find themselves wedged between strangers for hours on end. The once spacious cabins have become cramped, and any sense of personal space has effectively been dissolved.

In-flight service has also suffered. Cabin crew are often stretched thin, serving hundreds of passengers with limited resources. The personal touch that once defined air travel has been replaced by a more transactional approach. Passengers are now often treated as numbers rather than individuals, leading to a sense of impersonal service.

The Rise of Low-Cost Carriers

The emergence of low-cost carriers has further exacerbated the decline of air travel glamour. Airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet, WhizzAir, Scoot, AirAsia and JET have revolutionized the industry by offering significantly lower fares. However, this has come at a cost. Passengers are now faced with a plethora of additional fees for services that were once included in the ticket price.

Additional fees are now charged for checked bags, carry-on bags, seat selection, paper boarding passes, and in-flight refreshments like water, tea and coffee, all add up quickly, turning what initially appears to be a bargain into something much more expensive.

The low-cost model has led to a homogenization of the flying experience. Passengers are herded like cattle, boarding and disembarking in an industrial flow that prioritizes efficiency over comfort.

The thrill of flying has been replaced by a long list of anxiety creating circumstances including, worries about overweight luggage, getting a middle seat allocation, being unable to find overhead stowage, having to arrive hours ahead of departure, inadequate lounge seating, being unsure about whether the plane will leave on time, not being able to pay for anything with cash, ungodly departure and landing times, inconveniently located airports, crowded terminals and long and arduous security lines.

The Impact on Passenger Experience

The cumulative effect of these changes has been a significant shift in how passengers perceive air travel. While flying is now more accessible, the magic and excitement of the journey is now simply not there. Travellers approach air travel with a sense of dread rather than anticipation. The stress of getting to the airport, navigating security, and enduring cramped seating has overshadowed the joy of reaching a new destination.

There is a general lack of amenities and the service is highly impersonal. Surveys indicate that a significant percentage of travellers feel that the in-flight experience has deteriorated over the years. The once-coveted experience of enjoying a meal at 30,000 feet has been replaced by the reality of overpriced snacks and limited F&B options.

The rise of technology has not necessarily improved the passenger experience. While online check-in and mobile boarding passes have streamlined some processes, they have also contributed to a more transactional relationship between airlines and passengers. The human touch that once characterized air travel has been replaced by automated systems and self-service kiosks, not all of which are available or functioning, queues everywhere and the proverbial cattle station handling experience that passengers are subjected to, at every stage.

Cancel your ticket or have it cancelled for you, and you have no guarantees of a full refund or restitution or compensation. Instead the industry has spawned a whole world of travel insurance, and reinsurance with middle men and brokers selling you tickets, selling you travel protection and everything in between.

Nostalgia for the Past

For me at least, the nostalgia for the golden age of air travel is palpable. I reminisce about the days when flying was truly an event, marked by some special novelty and excitement. The memory of being served a nice meal, spacious seating, and some level of personalized attention from flight attendants even in coach/economy class. It evokes in me, a sense of longing for a bygone era that I can only experience again if I am prepared to pay a massive premium.

The nostalgia is not just about comfort in flying; it’s a desire for the experience of non utilitarian travel itself. The thrill of embarking on an adventure, the anticipation of exploring new geography, cultures, and the joy of connecting with fellow passengers. It has all been overshadowed by an altogether more stressful modern air travel experience.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Air Travel

The airline industry may evolve further, balancing cost-cutting measures with passenger expectations may make low fares and air travel more accessible but there’s a growing demand for improved service and comfort. The airlines that can find a way to enhance the passenger experience while maintaining competitive pricing may stand out in an increasingly crowded market.

Improved in-flight entertainment systems won’t cut it, in fact some airlines are cutting back on these too. Enhanced seating designs might help, but not if the designs continue to shrink personal space and add discomfort.

Improved customer service training could help restore some of the lost glamour of flying but a renewed focus on customer satisfaction and personalized service is what is really needed in order for airlines to regain the trust and loyalty of veteran travellers.

Cracking the whip

The bullwhip effect is a phenomenon where small changes in one end of a system can cause large fluctuations in another end of the system. You’ll see it most frequently associated with supply chain and logistics imbalances and fluctuations in demand and supply with amplification of variability in demand.

An adjunctive area of thinking is around the cobweb theorem in economics which relates to market price variability as a result of those same market supply and demand elements. The bullwhip effect can lead to excess inventory, lost revenue, and overinvestment in production whereas the cobweb theorem can lead to radical swings in market prices.

The bullwhip effect and the cobweb theorem are related because they both show how small changes in demand can cause large changes in supply. Ultimately both relate to imperfect information and associative reactions in end-to-end system that are not perfectly aligned or coordinated, leading to overreaction or underreaction by the system participants.

Bullwhip effects and cobweb based pricing in particular often lead to inefficiency, waste, and instability.

Effects on software development

One of the systems that can experience the bullwhip effect is software development. In the process of creating, testing, and deploying software applications that meet the needs and expectations of customers I see many stages and participants. Product managers, sponsors, developers, testers, development managers and of course customers, and users. At each stage the participants have different information and incentives that affect their own decisions and actions.

The bullwhip effect can occur in software development when there is a mismatch between the actual demand for the product or features in the product and the perception of demand in the minds of those within the software organization.

A customer may request a minor enhancement for example but those involved in the development process may interpret this as a major change and vice versa. More or less time and resources may be invested in the development of feature or capability than necessary. Let’s also be clear. Changes may also be triggered by other imperfect information, such as the relationship with the customer’s value in the software house’s revenue contribution chain or the software adoption lifecycle within the customer. Customer X may be a household brand but make a small bottom line contribution or customer Y may be an unknown brand yet have significant economic value to the business and a host of other possible combinations in between.

All of these factors can lead to software product delivery delays, overruns, and potential waste. If the customer requests a major change in the software, but this is underestimated, this can lead to an inadequate results, errors, defects, and customer dissatisfaction and the risk of loss.

Interpretation of requirements is so critical and yet so often overlooked beyond the face value of the ask. Sometimes “the ask” is also founded on anecdotes and opinions instead of evidence, insufficient modelling, the absence of prototyping and minimal market feedback. It is almost as if we fear hearing the critique and are just eager to build a solution.

There is also the proverbial problem of poor communication or handoff of requirements among the various participants. This can lead to distorted information and inaccurate requirements as a whole.

When stakeholders place overly ambitious demands on product or development teams or make decision pivots in an erratic or irregular way instead of making progressive, small incremental changes regularly, you can land up with spikes of activity, abandoning of initiatives in flight and incomplete work. These lead to resourcing and planning confusion, delivery crises and potentially wild cost variations. Everything becomes urgent and predictability on delivery goes out the window in favour of the latest new shiny thing.

Delivery crises or cost and estimate variations introduce uncertainty and anxiousness into the delivery assurance and process and negatively impact the potential usefulness of the roadmap and delivery plans. Promises or suggestions of intent made today settle as dust for tomorrow.

Deals contingent on feature delivery, renewals contingent on feature delivery; omissions of detailed fact, allowing unchallenged assumptions to be made about the presence or capability of features and an over-optimism on actual capabilities relative to real and present functionality encourages and perhaps even induces customers deals but creates feature alignment uncertainty and ruins the best made roadmap plans and planning in general.

Product and engineering managers have seen it time and time again; in start-up software houses it is perhaps the worst of all. Hunger for the commercial deal leads to over promising without due consideration of the impact to roadmap execution plans for existing commitments and other competing customer priorities or issues all in pursuit of business growth.

Demand information, such as feedback or analytics data, that is not shared or not used effectively by the organization as a whole, could have a direct impact on scheduling and resourcing and could result in poor coordination and planning.

Human behaviours, such as greed, exaggeration, or panic can influence offers and commercial decisions especially in times of economic uncertainty or at critical time junctures in the calendar like month, quarter or financial year end to meet quotas or squeeze budgets.

The product backlog

From a backlog perspective, timelines often become elongated, feature backlogs grow and actual product output may crawl, developers may land up producing software features uniquely designed for particular customers or industry segments in response to commercial obligations rather than in alignment with the mission of the business or a given product line’s vision.

There can be loss of revenue too, where features and capabilities are developed in a “misaligned with the market” way. Since developers are often the order takers from product management or executives, they rarely have the real opportunity to dispute the relative priority of things and opportunities may get missed, features may get rushed and the completeness of capability overlooked in favour of a “get it out fast” mindset, all in pursuit of perhaps a box checking exercise or to meet the narrowest of possible needs and expectations quickly.

Feature proliferation without market validation and qualification is effectively overinvestment or misplaced investment. A feature ROI will reveal that some features that seemed great in principle effectively become part of a wasteland of technical debt in production. The features may not be valued and worse, may not be used or adopted at all and removing them may be more expensive than simply having them linger in the product in perpetuity.

Poor quality is often also a result of the bullwhip with developers producing software inconsistently or of a low quality, buggy, unreliable, or incompatible with customer or user expectations. This in turn leads to lowered customer satisfaction, where customers or users are unhappy with the software features they receive or do not receive.

Remediation strategies

The bullwhip effect can be reduced or prevented in software development by adopting some neutralising strategies.

The first of these is an improvement in communication where there is the deliberate use of clear and consistent language, documentation, and feedback without guile or hubris.

This means practical down to earth descriptors that relate to state, opportunity and need. This may be in relation to opportunities, actual customer situations or on the flipside, a changing situation in relation to the state of the technology landscape or resources required to the work. The communication has to go both ways, servicing demand and supply aspects of the business. Developers tell technology stories and account managers tell customer stories. Product managers play back both sides.

Smoothing demand is really about settling on a product execution plan that works for everyone. This is achieved by actually being forward thinking and prescriptive about the product roadmap, features and functions. Providing enough detail to assuage concerns about progress but no so much detail that it becomes a road for the back in terms of execution. General direction of travel and progress markers are what count.

Focusing on intentions for the product based on the core values of the business and how the product lines up against those. The challenge here is for businesses with a small or emerging foothold in the market and a young or small product portfolio that they are trying to evolve. All that said, by choosing a narrow market segment rather than anything and everything with a potential pulse, your software business is focused on where the sales effort investment is likely to yield the best possible opportunities. Customers that are too big may be overbearing, those that are too small may be too expensive to service.

Pricing is often very contentious. A combination between science and the dark arts, it is difficult to always get the price for products perfectly right at the beginning. For this reason, many software products start with a relatively straight forward pricing model that becomes infinitely more complex and sophisticated as the size of the customer opportunity grows and the deals mature. You want to leave just enough money on the table to not feel that you undersold your product.

This may sometimes lead to hockey stick pricing models that seem super affordable or even free at low levels but then grow exponentially according to use or data or something like that – these strategies often leading to debates about value based pricing models. Attempts at price banding, price stepping and the like sometimes help. When these are combined with multiyear discounts or contingencies and other complex calculations, customers and sales people sometimes may get equally confused and the value to cost understanding compromised. This in turn can lead to horse trading or bidding wars, price gouging or ballooning. Poor thinking on pricing can be a destabilizer for investment runways it can also extend them. Be prepared to always rethink your pricing.

Customer churn considerations usually only kick in after the first anniversary of the sale but again, when considered in relation to pricing, feature development, cost to serve and the relative value of the opportunity to the software vendor, these can have an extraordinary and disruptive effect on software development lifecycle management as the customer’s specific backlog requirements get dusted off and get given elevated priority to ensure renewal, all with the limited context of a renewal at risk.

Sharing details on opportunities that have specific needs and expectations should happen regularly. The main participants in this process of communication should be the account teams and the product management team. Nothing should ever be promised to prospects without a clear understanding of the criticality of the requirement to the prospect, the relative position of that thing in a backlog (it may not even exist), the alignment with the product vision and a good understanding of the cost to service the requirement and optimistic timeline. I’d encourage customer teams to regularly involve product management in their customer qualification process also. Product managers crave the indulgence of not just customers but also prospects, as bystanders in the product demos and discovery sessions, they get to hear about the customer context problems and are best positioned to spot opportunities for product improvement or enhancement first hand.

Finally, it is worth considering that all of this relates to managing human behaviours. By educating and motivating all the teams to make rational and informed decisions based on facts rather than emotions one is better positioned to deliver superior software products consistently and affordably. By applying these strategies, software development houses can likely avoid or minimize the bullwhip effect and improve their operational and process efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.

Photo Credit: Pexels : Photo by Müşerref İkizoğlu

10 Strategies to Incentivize Customer Survey Participation

You know that customer surveys can provide you with valuable data for market research. But you’ve struggled to attract enough participants for your surveys in the past.

If you’re interested in transforming your market research strategy, working with the consultants can help.

There are a few methods you can use to motivate your customers to complete your surveys, providing them with gift cards, cash rewards, or freebies for example.

Cash and Discounts

Customers will be more inclined to take surveys when you’re offering cash or coupons!

If you want to give out cash incentives, use this guide to determine the right amount.
Handing out vouchers or discount codes to your customers is another persuasive tactic.
You can send out gift cards by using this API to reward participants.

Special Prizes

Sometimes, giving your customers a prize – or a chance to win a contest – can prompt them to complete surveys.

Come up with a cost-effective freebie to send to survey participants.
Consider treating customers to free samples of certain products!
You can leverage social media platforms to encourage customers to take surveys in exchange for contest entries.
Enroll your customers in big, exciting sweepstakes if they fill out your surveys!

Other Creative Incentives

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to incentives.

Here are some innovative ideas!

You can highlight survey participants on your company’s social media profiles to give shoutouts to your loyal customers.
Make charitable donations in honor of your survey participants.
Use your survey insights to spearhead new business expansion initiatives.

You don’t want to send out surveys that customers are unlikely to fill out.

Offering exciting incentives is one of the best ways to boost survey participation rates.

By giving your customers gift cards, registering them for contests or sweepstakes, and dishing out free samples, you’ll have no trouble getting the responses you need.

Ready to take your business in a new direction? Look no further than the experts at JonesAssociates! Fill out the contact form on the website to learn more about our services.

Photo via Unsplash

Incentivizing Consumers to Self-Serve Zero-Party Data and Consent

Privacy remains a big deal and there are several reasons why consumers may be hesitant to allow organizations to master their personal data.

Organizations keep records on consumers for various reasons, among them, personalization, service, marketing, compliance and fraud prevention.

They may use your data to personalize your experience with their products or services; using your browsing and purchase history to recommend products that you are more likely to be interested in.

Keeping records of your interactions with customer service teams enables them to provide better support in the future and ensure that needs are met quickly and efficiently.

Marketing campaigns may be annoying but when they are personalized there may be a change in perception. Analysing behaviour and preferences, marketeers can create more relevant and targeted advertising that is more likely to result in a conversion.

Especially in financial services, organizations need to keep records on consumers to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. For example, they may need to keep records of your transactions for tax or accounting purposes but also to minimize the likelihood of money laundering or illegal use of financial instruments and infrastructure.

In exchange for goods, services or funding, they may use consumer data to prevent fraudulent activity.; monitoring behaviour, usage profiles and transactions, they can identify suspicious activity and take action to prevent fraud.

On the flipside, consumers may feel that their personal data is sensitive and should be kept private.

They may worry that if an organization masters their personal data, it could be used for nefarious purposes or sold to third-party companies without their consent.

Consumers may also be concerned that if an organization masters their personal data, it could be at risk of being hacked or stolen by cybercriminals, resulting in potential identity theft, personal financial loss, and other undesirable consequences.

One of the reasons is that consumers feel that if an organization masters their personal data, they lose control over it; worrying that the data will be used in ways they do not approve of, or that they will not be able to access or delete their data as they see fit.

In particular, consumers worry that their personal data could be used to discriminate against them based on their race, gender, religion, or other personal characteristics. Personal data that is used to make decisions about who to hire, who to offer loans to, or who to market products to are undesirable uses of personal data, for consumers at least.

Consumers have long held feelings that if an organization masters their personal data, it could also lead to unwanted intrusion into their personal lives accompanied by constantly being targeted with ads or other forms of marketing, based on their behaviour being monitored and analysed in ways that feel intrusive or uncomfortable and an invasion of privacy.

Zero party data

An opt-in approach with first-party data can help to address some of the concerns that consumers may have about their personal data being mastered.

First-party data refers to the information that consumers willingly provide through interactions with a website, a product, or a service. An opt-in approach means that organizations only collect and use the consumer’s data with the explicit consent of the consumer. This can give consumers greater control over their data, and can help to build trust between consumers and organizations.

Those privacy concerns can be addressed through opt-in meaning consumers must explicitly agree to allow the collection and use of the data in specific ways. This can give consumers greater control over their personal information and can help to ensure that their data is being used only for legitimate purposes.

By limiting the data that is collected to only what is necessary for specific purposes, the opt-in approach with first-party data helps to reduce the exposure risk associated with prospective data breaches. Organizations that collect first-party data are often also more invested in protecting that data, as it is valuable for building and maintaining the customer relationship.

An opt-in approach also gives consumers more control over the personal information allowing them to choose which data to continue to share, and supporting opt-out of specific data and its collection at any time.

To reduce the risk of discrimination, organizations are required to obtain explicit consent before collecting data on personal characteristics and though data is typically used for personalization and targeted advertising, the consumer can decide how it should be used especially in relation to important decisions about the consumer.

An opt-in approach with first-party data also helps to reduce the feeling of intrusiveness. Consumers now have control over what data is collected and how it is used, the personalization and customization can enhance the user experience rather than detracting from it.

If an organization is considering implementing a customer master data management solution, it’s important to understand how this approach can address consumers’ concerns about their personal data.

Through increased transparency the CMDM provides greater transparency into the data that an organization collects and how it is used; this in turn builds trust with consumers, as they can see exactly what information is being collected and why.

By centralizing the customer data in a CMDM and implementing robust security measures, a customer master data management solution reduces the vectors and edges that provide risk in the event of data breaches. This can also provide reassurance to consumers who are concerned about the security of their personal information.

A CMDM also enables organizations to provide more personalized experiences to customers which in turn helps to build stronger relationships with customers, increases loyalty, and ultimately drives revenue growth.

An opt-in approach gives customers more control over their data, the CMDM can demonstrate that the organization respects the privacy of its customers. This is often a important differentiator in the competitive marketplace, where consumers are increasingly concerned about their data privacy.

CMDM also helps with compliance. Organizations need to comply with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. CMDM’s like that offered by Pretectum, can help to avoid legal and reputational risks associated with non-compliance by providing reassurance to customers and regulators that consumer data is being handled in a responsible and compliant manner.

Overall, a customer master data management solution can help to build trust with customers, enhance data security, deliver better customer experiences, and demonstrate respect for privacy and compliance with regulations.

Communicating with customers about how their personal data is being collected, used, and protected is increasingly important in good customer relationship management.

Consumers expect organizations to be transparent about the data they collect and how it is being used. They expect clear communication on the purpose of the data collection, and what benefits the customers can expect from it. They also expect to provide customers with easy-to-understand information about their data rights and options for managing the data.

Organizations would reassure customers that their personal data is being stored and protected securely, explaining the measures they have put in place to safeguard against data breaches, such as encryption, firewalls, and access controls.

Using an opt-in approach to data collection, means that customers have control over the data that is collected and can choose to opt out at any time. The benefits of opting in are of course more personalized experiences or access to exclusive offers.

Emphasizing respect for privacy of customers and a commitment to protecting personal data go hand in hand and would also explain compliance with relevant data privacy regulations. The responsible organization also highlights any certifications or standards they have achieved in in relation to governance and compliance regulation adherence.

The benefits that customers expect from the data collection might seem obvious such as an enhanced overall experience, but providing examples of how the data is being used to personalize products and services, improve customer service, and offer tailored promotions and discounts is important communication.

Overall, effective communication with customers about the implementation of a customer master data management solution is most critical to building trust and addressing concerns.

Transparency on intent and behaviours, emphasizing data security and privacy, using an opt-in approach, highlighting customer benefits, and complying with relevant regulations, organizations can reassure their consumers that their personal data is being handled responsibly and ethically.

In response, consumers should engage in self-service zero-party data and consent inquiries because it allows them to have greater control over their personal data and the experiences they have with an organization.

By providing preferences and consent, consumers can receive more relevant and personalized experiences, products, and services.

Ecommerce sites could show recommendations based on customer stated interests and preferences, health apps could provide workout plans tailored to a user’s fitness level and selected goals.

Reduced clutter in inboxes may make interactions with an organization more efficient and enjoyable and when accompanied by the ability to decide what information is shared with an organization and how it is used, feelings of more control of personal data and confidence that it is being handled responsibly may follow.

Keeping the interest alive

If the data is collected but not used, it should be securely stored and deleted after a reasonable period of time to ensure compliance with relevant data privacy regulations and businesses can incentivize consumers to provide their data in the context of self-service zero-party data and consent inquiry by offering exclusives, discounts, rewards and previews.

Offering exclusive content, such as whitepapers, eBooks, or reports only accessible to those who provide their data can be a powerful incentive, especially for customers who are interested in a particular topic.

Personalized discounts or coupons to customers who provide their data especially in retail could encompass discounts on next purchases based on stated interests or style preferences.

A free cup of coffee, for example, is obvious at a coffee shop but consider how Waitrose did the same for loyal card holders and how other retailers do the same for their loyalty scheme members. The offer of a free drink after a certain number of visits, with additional rewards for sharing preferences and feedback is an obvious option but the others are a little more subtle.

Giving customers early access to new products, services, or features if they provide their data like AMEX customers in association with events or event tickets is a great way to build excitement and loyalty among customers. Capital One and other financial institutions incentivize in similar ways.

Game or challenge e vents that encourages customers to provide their data like Pokémon Go, a 2016 augmented reality mobile game offers participants rewards for completing certain challenges. Additional rewards for sharing preferences and data is common with many card loyalty schemes as well as social apps.

In the end, it’s important to ensure that any incentives offered are aligned with the interests and preferences of customers, and that they are relevant and valuable.

Organizations today should ensure that they are transparent about their data collection practices and are respecting the privacy of their customers at all times.

Give customers the opportunity to self serve and drive first party data into the DNA of your business.

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