RAND Survey Shows Breaches Have Little Impact On Customer Loyalty

New research from RAND Corp reveals that over 25% of American adults were notified in the past twelve months that their personal information had been breached. And only 11% of them say they are unlikely to do business with the breached company again.   

The survey of 2,038 adults was conducted to determine the number of occurrences of data breach notifications, consumer reactions towards data loss, and company practices in responding to such occurrences.

According to the findings, people with higher-income and better education had been notified of a data breach exposing their personal information -- more than senior citizens and younger adults in the age group of 18–34. More than three-fourths say they were satisfied with the company’s response to the breach.

“While data breaches have become an alarmingly common part of American life, most people appear satisfied with companies’ responses to data breaches and few decide to take their business elsewhere. It’s unclear whether this response will induce companies to improve their breach notification practices,” said Lillian Ablon, the lead author of the study.

Some 44% of the US adults who recalled receiving a notification at some point say they had already learned of the breach from third party sources other than the hacked company, and 10% said they could find out the breach event themselves.

See the complete research study here.