Nearly 80% of individuals are uncomfortable sharing personal information over the phone, regardless of who is calling them, according to the results of a recently released survey, which also revealed that 26% of individuals are incapable of distinguishing a robocall from a human at the beginning of a call.
The survey, which included nearly 700 individuals nationwide, revealed that only 19% of individuals are either “very comfortable” or “comfortable” sharing personal information over the phone. Companies who do take personal information over the phone — such as debt collectors — should work to form a bond and build a rapport with individuals before seeking out that information, according to the company that conducted the survey.
More than half of they survey’s respondents indicated they preferred to be contacted by either email (40%) or text message (14%) as opposed to receiving a piece of physical mail (17%) or a phone call (24%). That each of the categories were the preferred method of being contacted for a significant number of individuals should speak to the importance of a collection agency deploying an omnichannel communication strategy that allows individuals to be contacted in the way they prefer.
Even though not many people prefer receiving physical mail, it is still considered to be the most trustworthy channel, according to the survey. When asked why people preferred to be contacted via a certain channel, people said physical mail was the most trustworthy, email was the most convenient, and physical mail was the most comfortable. Text messaging was deemed to be the least trustworthy, physical mail the least convenient, and text messaging the least comfortable.