A person is shopping in a grocery store.

Trust by design helps grocers maximize customer experiences

As digital aisles grow, so does the responsibility of grocers to safeguard customer shopping privacy.


In brief
  • Meeting evolving consumer expectations without putting their privacy at risk requires grocers to embrace a trust by design approach. 
  • Transparent responsible data stewardship and dynamic privacy and data protection strategies each have a part to play in this process.
  • Grocers that adopt a trust by design approach now can improve customer experience in ways that foster loyalty and sustainable growth.

Embrace a trust by design approach as you weave tech-driven touchpoints into the way customers experience your brand. This helps grocers reap the benefits of advanced technology investments over the short and long term, all while reinforcing trust as a market differentiator.

Why is trust by design integral to the customer experience?

Consumers have come to expect a different kind of experience from retailers, including the grocers who feed and fuel Canada’s families every day. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers grocers across Canada seemingly endless new ways to enhance that customer experience. These tools can help you draw on personal information to customize experiences, offers and interactions online or in store.

Deploying these technologies at scale entails using large amounts of data in ways that may feel new for grocers. And for consumers to feel comfortable participating in these digital experiences, they must trust that the organization knows what it’s doing with new technologies and is approaching the process responsibly and transparently.

Putting customers at the centre of an operating model that’s grounded in digital trust tends to give people the confidence to visit, interact and share data with you more willingly. This generates important intelligence you can use to further personalize the customer experience and shows folks you’re thinking beyond profit to deliver a more meaningful impact. 

In the grocery context, that means thinking about how to deliver the experience without putting customers at risk. That’s why employing these advanced technologies to improve customer experience requires organizations to bring stakeholders and decision-makers from privacy, cybersecurity, IT and other functional areas together at the beginning of the planning process, not after the fact.

How can grocers meet customer experience expectations without jeopardizing privacy?

Technologies must be integrated, used and used in ways that show consumers you respect their rights and will keep their personal information safe. This is the linchpin that motivates consumers to share information in the first place and trust the process at every stage of the customer journey.

According to the EY Future Consumer Index, consumers are willing to pay extra for brands they trust, up from 25% in February 2022 to 35% in October 2023. People must feel confident that privacy is considered paramount, data will be used ethically, and where AI comes in, that it’s done responsibly

To create an ecosystem that reflects these considerations, you must first build a privacy and data protection program that allows you to employ advanced technologies safely. Coupled with privacy and security by design principles, this program becomes your foundation for more personal — and safer —customer experiences that users can trust.

We recommend grocers embed transparency in customer experience. Position your organization in the market as a responsible data steward and have the right practices internally to back that up. Adopt a dynamic privacy and data protection strategy supported by technology to enable the business to provide enhanced customer experiences safely and responsibly. 

To create an ecosystem that reflects these considerations, you must first build a privacy and data protection program that allows you to employ advanced technologies safely. Coupled with privacy and security by design principles, this program becomes your foundation for more personal — and safer —customer experiences that users can trust.

We recommend grocers embed transparency in customer experience. Position your organization in the market as a responsible data steward and have the right practices internally to back that up. Adopt a dynamic privacy and data protection strategy supported by technology to enable the business to provide enhanced customer experiences safely and responsibly.

Focusing on three key considerations can be a great way to get started:

Transparency: Garnering consumer trust is essential for retailers due to the volume and sensitivity of personal information they collect on consumers, ranging from payment details to shopping preferences, purchase history, personal health information, residential addresses and even insights derived from cross-organization loyalty programs.

By the numbers: 64% of consumers trust companies that provide clear information about their privacy practices, 82% of consumers say they have opted out of sharing personal information due to privacy concerns and 67% of consumers say they have chosen not to make an online purchase due to privacy concerns.

While transparency is pivotal in building and maintaining consumer trust, it’s also a regulatory compliance matter. This is evolving as tools like AI enter the technological mix, with transparency being positioned as a cornerstone in new and emerging AI legislation. 

What’s your key takeaway? Establish trust from the first customer interaction with straightforward and user-friendly privacy notifications embedded in information collection processes to balance consumer expectations against regulatory requirements.

Responsible data stewardship: As custodians of personal information, companies are only permitted to use data within the parameters of the law and individual consent. If customers have a clear understanding of how they will benefit from enhanced experiences based on the information they provide and can maintain a level of control over their personal information during and after their relationship with the company, they will be more likely to share data. In fact, 62% of consumers say one of the most important actions a company can take to enhance trust is to give control to people to update their personal information.

Increased individual control over personal information is a major theme in new privacy legislation around the world, including Canada. Business use cases involving personal information require a lawful basis that complies with privacy regulations and meets customers’ expectations. Organizations need to implement processes to identify new use cases of customer data and establish a lawful basis for carrying out activities involving the collection, use, disclosure and other processing of personal information. Companies must also define a point of contact for people to inquire about the organization’s privacy practices, communicate any complaints and exercise rights afforded to them under privacy legislation.

Being a responsible data steward also means working with service providers to communicate requirements, obtain commitments from them and have monitoring processes in place to gain comfort that the people you deal with can support your commitment to customers that you will use their data securely and responsibly.

What’s your key takeaway? Define what responsible data stewardship means for your organization. Remember who owns personal information and focus on trust by design. Make consent meaningful and have internal procedures to honour consumers’ personal preferences. 

Dynamic privacy and data protection strategies: This means designing flexible and fit-for-purpose privacy and data protection processes that are tailored to how the organization uses personal information. Why? Understanding the data you hold and how you are using it is crucial for defining privacy and data protection practices that are fit for purpose and tailored to your organization’s particular risk profile. Deep understanding of the data ecosystem is critical when it comes to the adoption of novel or large-scale data processing technologies such as AI.

Grocers need to be very clear internally about their emerging technology use cases, what data elements are in scope and what is the benefit for the consumer. Knowledge of key details about the organization’s uses of personal information is crucial for designing products and services in a way that protects data effectively and respects individual privacy rights. This includes the specific purposes for which the information is being collected and used, the legal basis, where data is stored and how it is retained, and third parties with whom data is shared.

If grocers can articulate these details with confidence based on strong internal controls and clearly explain how data will be safeguarded and used responsibly in the process, consumers will be far more likely to buy into these new experiences.

Research shows 60% of consumers said they have greater trust in companies that go out of their way to demonstrate that privacy is an imperative and communicate frequently about data protection. Meanwhile, consumers concerned with privacy are also more likely to delete apps from their phones, at 4.4 times per year versus 3.7 times for the unconcerned. A further 34% of consumers said they always stop using a company after it suffers a data breach. 

What’s your key takeaway? Understand your data ecosystem, where it comes from and where it’s going — especially if you’re getting into large-scale data processing using AI. Adopt a holistic and flexible approach to privacy and data protection that you refresh based on how the organization’s collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of data evolves. Then, generate trust by design by providing insight into the organization’s privacy practices and attitudes as they relate directly to the value proposition for the customer. This information allows customers to understand the value being brought to both parties and lays the foundation for a trusted relationship. 

Summary 

Now’s the time for grocers to reframe transparency as a living, breathing process. Bringing together the right stakeholders can help you bake transparency, responsible data stewardship and dynamic privacy and data protection into a truly customer-centric experience. This can set your business apart in a highly competitive market today and enable you with the flexibility to continuously and safely adapt over the long term.

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