Boxcryptor Customer Survey 2019 - Secure Use of the Cloud in Figures
At the beginning of the year, we conducted the first major customer survey among Boxcryptor users. Three things were the focus of our attention:
- General satisfaction with our encryption software Boxcryptor
- Boxcryptor Customer Survey 2019 - Results
- Use of the support offers and handling of errors
The survey was conducted among users who had subscribed to the Boxcryptor newsletter. About 3,000 of them responded to the call. We published the survey in the three languages German, English, and Russian. By far the most responses came from Germany (1,595), followed by the USA (464), and Great Britain (141).
We consider the results of our customer survey to be particularly interesting, as the participants all actively use an encrypted cloud as data storage. This gives us an overview of the habits and preferences of a security-conscious, informed, and, above all, active user group. These are the results.
Encryption - Recommendations Play an Increasing Role
In our experience, encryption is still an issue that is mainly addressed by IT-savvy people in 2019. Since Boxcryptor was founded in 2011, we have been committed to making security accessible to everyone. We have succeeded in doing that.
It encourages us to see that about 40 % of respondents would like us to focus even more on usability. We attribute this to the fact that encryption is often installed based on recommendations. Consequently, the simpler the software, the easier it is to convince relatives, friends, or business contacts to use additional security measures. The survey data also confirms the observation that personal recommendations have become more important in recent years.
16.83 % of our users come on personal recommendation.
It is also fitting that 22 % of the respondents would like to see further opportunities for cooperation. Secure processing and sharing of encrypted data is becoming increasingly important for project work, cooperation, and in private context.
Cloud Storage – Diversity is Everything
As a provider of encryption software, we do not collect any data about which cloud storage location users chose in combination with Boxcryptor. Of course, we could – like many other providers – collect and evaluate much more data about our users, but we don't. We think privacy and data protection are more important. In the past, we were able to deduce a certain tendency from the daily contact with our customers. The customer survey now provides reliable figures.
It turns out: The fact that we support the favorite cloud storage provider used by the individual user, has always been the most important reason for the use of Boxcryptor. We assume that our users already chose their favorite cloud and then added encryption as an additional layer of security.
In 2019, Boxcryptor supports over 30 cloud storage providers. Many more can be easily connected via WebDAV. You can see our user’s favorite cloud providers in the following graphic.
The three large cloud storage providers Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive are by far at the top of the popularity scale. It should be noted that Dropbox was the first cloud storage for which Boxcryptor was available. Therefore, the high share not only reflects the great popularity of this service, but is also due to the history of Boxcryptor.
Fourth place goes to iCloud. Many users of Boxcryptor were automatically added to this cloud storage because their devices (iPhone, iPad and Mac) are designed and optimated for the use of Apple's own cloud storage service. This is similar with OneDrive. Everyone who uses a Microsoft service (e.g. Microsoft Office) automatically receives storage space there.
Our survey showed that around 20 % of respondents store their encrypted data locally - whether on a smartphone, tablet or computer. It turns out: The big advantage of Boxcryptor compared to our competitors is our versatility. With Boxcryptor, files can be encrypted just as easily in the cloud as locally. Here, our users benefit from our file-based encryption.
Almost 15 % of the private users who took part in our survey back up their files in a private Network Attached Server (NAS). We know from experience that these users have had good experiences with their NAS and Boxcryptor.
The frequent use of a NAS in combination with a cloud also reflects the attitude of many companies towards cloud storage. Our sales team reports that some customers initially use Boxcryptor to secure their NAS, without any plans to move to the cloud. The convenient encryption with Boxcryptor however, sometimes changes that. After a few months, the cloud was discussed again as a possibility for (physically) secure file storage. Thanks to Boxcryptor, security concerns can then be excluded.
The survey also confirms another observation: almost two thirds of respondents use more than one storage location for their encrypted files. The parallel use of local encryption, network drives and cloud storage, as well as multicloud environments, is quite common.
Support – User Friendliness in Focus
Our users have various resources at their disposal when it comes to using Boxcryptor optimally and efficiently. Our changelog, help pages and the Boxcryptor forum are publicly available. Individual processes, such as the encryption of image files, are presented in detail in the blog. For customers of the personal license of Boxcryptor or higher value licenses, email support is available during business hours.
Nevertheless, our survey shows that users prefer to help themselves. 54.3 % said they had consulted our help pages. 53.1 % were able to solve application problems with a short research on the Internet.
It was particularly pleasing that many respondents took the opportunity to praise our support team in the text fields of the customer survey. This was a great confirmation of the performance of our team.
I appreciated the fast and sufficient help from your support team, when I once faced a problem.
Thanks
We are overwhelmed by the excellent response rate of our survey and would like to thank all participants. The data collected helps us to adapt our encryption software even better to your needs.
Improving communication is just as important to us. By taking a closer look at your feedback, we will be able to explain our functions even better in the future - in blogs and newsletters, on our help pages and in the changelog, and not least in support.
With these goals in mind, from now on we will conduct the customer survey regularly and inform you about the results.
