Today’s consumers are more technology-empowered than ever before — and more connected to each other through technology. To win over these consumers, retailers not only must “consider the wants and needs of individual consumers, but also understand how they engage in virtual communities to share ideas, tastes and buying habits,” according to “Winning Over the Empowered Consumer,” a new report from IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), Armonk, N.Y. Why? Because ultimately, it is through this “lens of connectivity and collaboration” that enlightened consumers decide which retailers have earned their trust.

And trust is critical to success on the store brand side and overall, Melissa Schaefer, IBV’s global retail industry thought leader, told Progressive Grocer’s Store Brands.

“What we found is that there’s a direct correlation between trust and loyalty,” she said. “As trust goes up, so does loyalty, which means the opportunity [for consumers] to recommend, spend more and stay with a retailer, and that actually drives financial revenue overall.”

Based on a global survey involving more than 28,000 consumers in eight “mature” and seven “emerging” countries, the report details several key findings, Schaefer noted. One important finding is that even though approximately 25 percent of global consumers have no desire to use any technology during the shopping process, 24 percent of global consumers are willing to use three or more technologies. And age is a factor here.

“The 50 percent from last year’s survey that were willing to use two or more technologies had no correlation to age or income,” Schaefer noted. “But when we looked this year at the number that were willing to use three — think of websites, mobile, social, electronic games, social videos — it’s really driven by the younger generation, the teens through up until about the 40-year-olds. Then it tapers off.”

Another finding of importance to retailers is that 75 percent of consumers are open to sharing some personal information (such as media usage, demographics and lifestyle information) with industries — as long as they get some non-monetary reward for that information, Schaefer said. In fact, these “open-minded” consumers are willing to tell companies how to promote to them in exchange for getting personalized offerings and compelling reasons to shop. Store brand promotions, for instance, need to be interesting and personalized.

In addition to the survey, IBV “listened in” on some 1.2 million relevant online conversations on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more during the period from the back-to-school retail season and Cyber Monday, Schaefer noted. Retailers, too, should pay close attention to conversations related to them and their competition — and respond appropriately.

“By listening to these conversations and learning, you can actually leverage analytics to get a 360-degree view of the customers, meaning you know their language; you know what they’re talking about; you know what’s important to them; you even know the ‘communities of we’ that they are joining — their social networks,” she said.

In addition to using analytics to listen to customers and learning and adapting based on what they hear, the report says retailers must “anticipate and adapt” by establishing a way to identify their top consumer influences and using the data to anticipate future products and services. They then should “execute and excel” by knowing everything they can about their consumers and their preferences and evolving the most rigid processes that hinder them from demonstrating loyalty to those consumers — and earning their trust.

“I think the big question this year that retailers need to ask themselves is not ‘How do I make the customer loyal to me?’ but ‘How am I loyal to the customer?’” Schaefer maintained. “Figure out your most rigid processes and allow them to be flexible. Allow the consumer to feel like they are king.”

To learn more, visit http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/thoughtleadership/retail.html.