• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 12, 2018

Consumers want to trust brands with their data, but recent findings suggest they don’t.

Trust plays a role for 92% of Americans, 89% of United Kingdom residents, and 95% of Canadians when making a big purchase, according to recent data from SurveyMonkey.

Three online surveys, one in each region, were conducted from October 5 through October 7, 2018 among adults age 18 and older in the U.S., the UK, and Canada with a total sample of 3,053. Respondents for these surveys were selected from a panel compensated to take surveys relevant to them.

Consumers generally prefer to purchase from established brands rather than startups, but trust also has to do with online presence. For example, having a website is more important than a social media page on Facebook with it comes to establishing trust.

While marketers spend money on advertising, celebrities, and influencers to endorse their products, it seems irrelevant to the influence of friends and family.

Some 51% of those participating in the survey say they have never purchased something because of an ad. Only 8% have ever purchased a product because of a celebrity endorsement, and only 13% have purchased because of an online influencer.

On the other hand, 64% of Canadians, 65% of Americans, and 52% of UK residents have purchased something because of a recommendation of a friend or family member.

The findings show that poor customer service and product experience are the biggest trust issues that promote the consumer to go elsewhere to purchase the product.

Some 81% of Americans say that a poor experience with a product would make them lose trust in a brand, with 73% of UK residents and 71% of Canadians agreeing. And 78% of Americans, 65% of UK residents, and 70% of Canadians would lose trust due to a poor customer service experience.

All trust is not lost. A study of 1,000 U.S. consumers released last week from Janrain found 48% of people will try to buy only from companies they believe will protect their personal data, although they don’t fully trust all the brands they conduct business with.

One-third will only buy from companies they know they can trust, and 14% say that trust won’t factor into their purchases because they don’t believe any company can protect their personal data.

When asked to name the types of businesses that survey participants trusted the least, Google and Facebook topped the list at 31%.

Hotels and restaurants and other hospitality services came in at 15%. Service phone providers such as AT&T and Verizon came in at 10%, and retail outlets came in at 7%.

Amazon and other online stores in Janrain’s survey came in at 4%. But when asked to name the most trusted brands, Amazon ranked No. 1, Google followed at No. 2, Apple at No. 3, Chase at No. 4, and Paypal at No. 5.

The least trusted were Facebook, Google, Wells Fargo, Equifax, and Target -- all companies that in the past year or two reported security data breaches.