The coming battle for customer information

Companies collect information about customers to target valuable prospects more effectively, tailor their offerings to individual needs, improve customer satisfaction, and identify opportunities for new products or services. But managers' efforts to capture such information may soon be thwarted. The authors believe that consumers are going to take ownership of information about themselves and start demanding value in exchange for it. As a result, negotiating with customers for information will become costly and complex. How will that happen? Consumers are realizing that they get very little in exchange for the information they divulge so freely through their commercial transactions and survey responses. Now new technologies such as smart cards, World Wide Web browsers, and personal financial management software are allowing consumers to view comprehensive profiles of their commercial activities-- and to choose whether or not to release that information to companies. Their decision will hinge, in large part, on what vendors offer them in return for the data. Consumers will be unlikely to bargain with vendors on their own, however. The authors anticipate that companies they call infomediaries will broker information to businesses on consumers' behalf. In essence, infomediaries will be the catalyst for people to start demanding value in exchange for information about themselves. And most other companies will need to rethink how they obtain information and what they do with it if they want to find new customers and serve them better.