Privacy: Reduce your Customers’ Concerns by Building Trust FirstWritten by Anti Spam League
Before making a purchase from you, buyers need to trust your company and think that your products and services will do what they are supposed to. Do your marketing and online practices help establish trust necessary to convince prospects to buy from you? What is connection between privacy and trust? Evidence shows that two are closely correlated.Since beginning of interpersonal communication, trust has been perhaps most important influence on information disclosure. Then, when commerce started, people would trade with those individuals whom they trusted and would avoid those who were perceived as non-trust-worthy. Intrinsically subjective and hard to define, trust is a function of amount and type of control one has in a relationship. Social exchange theory advocates that individuals weigh both costs and rewards in deciding whether to engage in social transactions. Aided by a little common sense we can conclude that if rewards outweigh costs, then individual is likely to enter into an exchange relationship whereas if cost outweighs rewards there will be no exchange. This trade-off occurring inside people’s minds should not be overlooked since it ultimately determines whether they will buy from you or not. The same process takes place in cyberspace. That is, risks of disclosing personal information are weighed against benefits when deciding to provide information to a website. Hence, trust is critical to disclosure in both interpersonal and online relationships. This is where privacy concerns come in. In a previous article; “How to write a privacy policy”, we said that privacy involves protecting our integrity as individuals and our right to disclose or not to disclose our personal information to third parties. Since technology has become such a powerful enabler of data collection and utilization, one of biggest IT responsibilities is making sure that personal information their systems collect is protected from misuse and abuse. Who draws line that separates them both? This seems to be quite an intricate issue. As a consequence of terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, increased security is a reality in today's world. As US government collects more personal information about its citizens, are Americans really confident that their personal information is being safeguarded without their privacy being compromised? A survey conducted by Ponemon Institute, a leading privacy think tank, in September 2003 uncovers some interesting findings. The more than 6,000 Americans who participated in this first annual Privacy Trust Survey were asked to indicate their confidence, as it relates to protecting privacy, regarding 60 different government agencies. The overall results indicated that majority of Americans surveyed (83%) consider privacy a matter that is important or very important to them. Nonetheless, many respondents indicated they have a high level of uncertainty about government agencies that collect and use that information, thus creating a negative impression of those organizations. The survey also showed that protecting personal information is important to people of all ages, education and income levels. Among organizations scoring highest were hospitals, doctors, banks and U.S. Postal Service. Those ranking lowest included retailers, grocery stores, telephone companies and newly created Department of Homeland Security. Although at a first glance it might seem somewhat strange that two federal government agencies could score so differently on survey, a closer look would explain apparent discrepancy. When you compare two, it is easy to see why consumers trust mailman more than people fighting terrorism. The Postal Service has more than a century of proof it can be trusted, while Department of Homeland Security does not yet have such proof. A number of studies of interpersonal exchange situations have confirmed that trust reduces perceived risks or cost involved in revealing private information. As a case in point, Jarvenpaa and Tractinsky in their ‘Internet Consumer Trust Model’ (1999) found that trust increases confidence in a company, which lowers perceived risk of electronic exchange with that company and, therefore, increases likelihood of consumers engaging in electronic transactions. Similarly, Swaminathan et al. in ‘Exchange Model’ (1999) established that consumers prefer to do business with web sites that they perceive to be reliable, honest, consistent, competent, fair, responsible, helpful, and altruistic, all of which are main components of trust. All of above indicates that role of trust in facilitating disclosure is especially critical in online exchanges, where computer-mediated communication replaces physical contact. Other potential issues on Internet include; technical difficulties for people who are new to online world, lack of ability for consumers to physically inspect goods prior to purchase, and new companies that have not been in market long enough to establish good reputations. Trust is important because it contributes to building a good or bad image of company before customers’ eyes. Negative images are very hard to change. This is why this is such a delicate and critical issue.
| | 5 hot Internet businesses for 2005Written by Nowshade Kabir
If you are planning to start a new business in 2005, you should seriously consider one of many Internet based businesses available today. The online businesses have numerous inherent advantages in comparison to their brick and mortar counterparts. Investment is relatively small The basic elements to start an online business are followings: a good product or service, an online presence, and a good marketing plan. All these things can be done on a shoe-string budget. You won’t require more than US$ 2000 to start any of business described below. In most of cases, investment can be even lower. Quick to launch Once you know, what products or services you are going to sell, you can, basically, start your business within three to four weeks. Some of online businesses don’t even take more than two to three days to start. Large audience Internet is big and it’s getting bigger! Whatever business you prefer to start, Internet allows you to tap instantly into a huge number of potential customers, which is, virtually, impossible to do with a brick and mortar enterprise. Huge growth potential With Internet, sky is limit! If you have a good product, service or idea, you can create a dot com behemoth over night! Smart guys are doing this! Internet success examples are abound. Work from home The best thing about online business is you can take care of it even while you are on vacation. No office is necessary; you work from home, if that is what you prefer. Less paper work Since starting for your quotation and purchase orders to invoices and shipment tracking, everything is done online; you hardly have to do any paper work. Check out an example of how easy it is to manage your business processes online at http://www.rusbiz.com/deal_manage.html Flexible time schedule No longer have you had to work nine to five! You set your own schedules. Although, with any new business, initially, you have to work very hard, however, time flexibility allows you to do other important things whenever it’s necessary. There is no limit to Internet business ideas. Savvy entrepreneurs are constantly coming up with mind-boggling online projects and striking rich in no time. Here I have chosen several of online businesses with great upward potential with proven success history. Selling information If you are asked, what do you do on Internet most of time? The answer, most probably, will be searching or retrieving information. You are not alone! A survey conducted by Neilsen Media Research shows that Books and Information Category tops highest selling product and service on Internet with a significant margin in comparison to other categories. This makes information a natural product for sale on Internet. Information sells online in formats of e-books, articles, reports, data, whitepapers etc. If you have expertise in any specific field, you may consider selling your ideas in one of mentioned format. Check out Clickbank’s marketplace to get a good idea what people are selling. You will be truly amazed by scope of ideas! Resources http://www.clickbank.com http://ezine.rusbiz.com/article/13.htm Travel agency According to Jupitar Research U.S. online travel market has grown at a fast pace over last year, totaling $54 billion in 2004, or 23% of travel purchased. The online market is projected to grow to $91 billion in 2009, or 33% of travel purchased. Apart from being a soaring market, travel agency is also highly rewarding and satisfactory business. The interesting thing about this business is your own network of acquaintances is also your potential customers.
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