A new survey into consumer attitudes toward out-of-home activities has revealed what retail and hospitality businesses need to do to regain consumer trust as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.
Support for the local community—alongside care for employees and key workers—emerged as the top factor influencing trust in brands, followed closely by transparency around safety measures and proactive communication.
The survey, conducted by digital ordering platform QikServe and digital loyalty provider Eagle Eye Solutions, highlights how consistent digital engagement during lockdown significantly influences customer trust and post-lockdown behavior.
41% of respondents said they would feel more confident visiting a business that continued to operate—such as through delivery or curbside pickup—during lockdown.
Meanwhile, 56% reported feeling roughly the same toward brands they had been loyal to pre-lockdown. However, 25% said their trust in these brands actually increased over the course of the pandemic.
This demonstrates that a brand's owned digital channels—especially its website—remain the most trusted source of information about reopening plans and COVID-19 safety protocols.
Restaurants ranked highest among non-essential businesses that consumers are eager to return to. This suggests strong recovery potential for the hospitality sector, especially for brands that maintained visibility and customer engagement during lockdown.
"As well as being good news for the hospitality industry, the fact that consumers are keen to eat out proves how well operators and brands have responded to the pandemic despite facing significant challenges themselves," said Al Henderson, Chief Sales Officer at Eagle Eye.
"The survey reveals just how important it is for brands and operators to engage with customers digitally—even when venues are closed—to keep them informed of safety measures, response efforts, and online ordering options. As lockdown eases, digital capabilities will be even more critical in building trust and loyalty."
"With social distancing likely to limit the number of customers that retail and hospitality operators can serve—and therefore impact revenue—loyalty driven by trust and convenience will be essential," added Daniel Rodgers, President and Founder of QikServe.
"Those already using digital ordering can now extend these services to attract customers back and increase foot traffic."
About Eagle Eye
Eagle Eye is a leading SaaS and AI technology company enabling retail, travel and hospitality brands to earn the loyalty of their end customers by powering their real-time, omnichannel and personalised consumer marketing activities, at scale.
Eagle Eye AIR is a cloud-based platform, which provides the most flexible and scalable loyalty and promotions capability in the world. More than 850 million personalised offers are executed via the platform every week, and it currently hosts over 500 million loyalty member wallets for businesses all over the world. Eagle Eye is a certified member of the MACH Alliance and is trusted to deliver a secure service at hundreds of thousands of physical POS destinations worldwide, enabling the real-time issuance and redemption of promotional coupons, loyalty offers, gift cards, subscription benefits and more.
The Eagle Eye AIR platform is currently powering loyalty and customer engagement solutions for enterprise businesses all over the world, including Asda, Central Retail, Endeavour Group, JD Sports, Loblaws, Morrisons, Pret a Manger, Tesco, Virgin Group, Woolworths Group and Z Energy. In January 2024, Eagle Eye launched EagleAI, a next-generation data science solution for personalisation, already being used by leading retailers worldwide including Carrefour and Tesco. Web - eagleeye.com