Technology has eased the burden of many everyday chores, and consumers now enjoy the ease and convenience of performing certain tasks –from banking to shopping to paying bills –online.
Unfortunately, though, these seemingly routine duties can result in a whole new kind of headache, a virtually triggered condition known as “password fatigue.”
Most of us realize why it’s important to create and maintain unique passwords for our various online accounts—unique passwords are our strongest line of defense against identity theft and fraud. So, the majority of us (nearly 60 percent) have five or more passwords to remember. But, nearly a third have more than ten, and almost 10 percent have more than 20, according to a recent poll of more than 2,200 Americans adults.
As you might expect, keeping track of so many sign-ons frustrates a significant number of people:
- Nearly four in 10 survey respondents indicated they would rather take on a tedious household chore—even clean toilets!—than create yet another password.
- More than one-third (38 percent) felt that bringing about world peace would be an easier task than trying to remember all of the passwords they’d created.
- Two out of five people indicated they needed to ask for assistance with a username or password at least once a month to access an account.
“With all of the different websites consumers login to on a regular basis – from email and social networks to online banking and ecommerce sites – it’s no wonder people are struggling to remember such a large number of passwords,” said Larry Drebes, CEO of Janrain, the company that commissioned the survey. “What’s surprising is that consumers think cleaning their bathroom, or in the extreme cases trying to solve world peace, sounds preferable to adding yet another password to the list.”
Beyond the need to create new passwords, a vast majority of the people in this study (84 percent) expressed dissatisfaction with having to register in order to gain access to various sites in the first place.
More than half of these respondents were disgruntled at the prospect of creating yet another password, and 44 percent felt that most registration forms are just too long. On the other hand, more than six out of 10 of the survey participants admitted that if they knew what companies were going to do with their personal information, they might be more willing to provide it.
How do password protections impact the customer experience at your site?
Drebes suggests that consumers streamline the password creation process in a way that would greatly decrease their frustration.
“By creating strong, secure passwords that are changed regularly for the identities they use the most, consumers can take their identity across the Web instead of registering or creating a new password at every site they visit via social login,” he concluded.
