"Fear Trumps Anger When It Comes to Data Breaches – Angry Customers Vent, but Fearful Customers Don't Come Back"
If a user is notified of a data breach involving their personal information and responds with fear rather than anger, they are more likely to stop using the impacted site. This was the main finding of a study conducted by Rajendran Murthy, a professor of marketing at Rochester Institute of Technology, and three co-authors to determine which emotions cause consumers to alter their behavior following a data breach. They discovered that angry consumers are more likely to vent on various social media platforms before returning to the compromised site. They surveyed 208 US consumers between 18 and 60 and asked them to describe their emotions upon learning of a data breach on their favorite and most frequented website. Consideration was given to subscription websites, such as Netflix and Xbox Live, and free-to-use websites, such as Facebook and Snapchat. The researchers then asked the participants to describe the actions they took in response. As indicated by some prior research, they discovered that positive attitudes toward the website before the breach had no meaningful impact on whether consumers reengaged with the website after the breach. Fear weighed significantly on the customers. This article continues to discuss the study "Better Angry Than Afraid: The Case of Post Data Breach Emotions on Customer Engagement."