Study: What's most crucial for Asian buyers when it comes to brand trust?

Digital trust has a big impact on brand awareness and reputation, but due to security or data breaches, 50% of Asian respondents have lost faith in a company, said a recent report by Okta which polled more than 1,700 office workers across in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

When it comes to building brand trust, consumers care most about a company’s service reliability, strong security, quick response times and good data handling practices. In making purchasing decisions, more than half (58%) of Asian respondents would be unlikely to purchase from a firm they didn’t trust to handle their data. Approximately, 45% of Asian respondents listed data breaches as the factor that will most strongly deter them from purchasing goods and services online, followed by images that misrepresent products (39%) and websites with questionable legitimacy (38%) and websites that request too much personal information (38%).

Additionally, when it comes to retaining customers, data ethics is crucial. Asian consumers are most likely to lose trust in brands that intentionally misuse or sell personal data, followed by brands that fall prey to a data breach. About 38% said they had permanently stopped using a company’s services and deleted the app following a breach.

“Asia Pacific has far outpaced the rest of the world in online sales growth over the last year. This high demand, coupled with intense competition, has made brand trust a potential make-or-break for businesses looking to grow and retain an online customer base,” said Graham Sowden, Okta’s general manager for Asia Pacific. “Customers are increasingly wary of online threats, and digital-first businesses have no option but to equip themselves with the right policies and technologies to drive trust, loyalty and success.”

With the proliferation of digital commerce platforms, businesses must win over the trust of  Asian consumers. Consumers in Asia also have a high level of trust in digital channels with only 10% of all Asian respondents saying they don’t trust any digital channels to safely handle their data.  But at the same time, Asians are also more cautious than their global counterparts, with 71% of Asian respondents sharing that they have become more cautious about providing personal information online amidst the pandemic – almost double the global average (41%). Specifically, Asian respondents feel they are most at risk from identity theft (22%), data breaches (18%) and password theft (16%).

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