LOYALTY PROGRAMS AND PERSONAL DATA SHARING PREFERENCES IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Effective loyalty program management and evaluation requires that retailers have access to relevant data. In most cases, loyalty program organizers aim to establish consumer databases for the purpose of identification of individual customers: loyalty program members. The structure and quality of customer data often has a strategic effect on retailers' decision-making accuracy and profitability. On the other hand, consumers worry about their privacy and fear their personal data may be misused. For a good-faith loyalty program organizer, it is an ongoing task to reconcile their corporate interests with the interests of consumers who are often rewarded by purchase incentives and personalized services. Consumer's willingness to disclose personal information to loyalty program organizers is not uniform. In fact, individual preferences, sociodemographic and lifestyle factors play a very important role. This study provides a structured quantitative analysis of customers' willingness to share selected key types of personal and contact data with loyalty program organizers in the Czech Republic. Cost-benefit assessments based on our results may help marketing managers with establishing and/or amending key LP incentives. We identify and discuss important differences in personal and contact data-sharing preferences among specific consumer groups. To highlight some of the empirical results, respondents aged 65 and older are significantly less willing to disclose personal data as compared to younger consumers. On the other hand, we do not find a statistically significant evidence for education-based differences in data sharing preference. Our results may be utilized by marketing professionals (loyalty program organizers) as well as by academic researchers in order to optimize their consumer data-gathering processes.