The human touch: study highlights growing need for human advice in online retail
Service of the future: how companies are combining technology and human interaction to improve the customer experience
HAMBURG, GERMANY (April 24th, 2024) – Personalization is a prerequisite for a positive customer digital retail experience. As current research shows, it is no longer enough just to tailor marketing to the customer’s individual needs. More and more consumers now also want the option of interacting with a human being when they are shopping online. But consumers feel that brands are neglecting this human touch.
These are some of the results of an international online survey* carried out by the market research institute Innofact, on behalf of CoreMedia, a leading Digital Experience Platform. The representative study surveyed a total of 2,535 people in five countries*.
The human touch: customers want more human interaction
There is a strong demand for personalized online experiences in all countries surveyed: 56% of consumers surveyed find personalized product recommendations to be helpful in finding the right product, and 52% make better and faster purchasing decisions. But as the study shows, consumers are looking for more than that.
For 45% of the respondents, the ability to initiate a direct conversation with a customer advisor at the click of a button is essential for a satisfactory online shopping experience.
“There is no denying the emotional impact of human interactions in the digital space. It enriches the digital customer experience and makes personalized marketing more authentic and valuable”, underlines Sören Stamer, co-founder and CEO of CoreMedia. “It is only the human touch that adds personal contact and trust to the shopping experience, and demonstrably contributes to boosting the desire for and frequency of purchases”, continues Stamer.
The study underlines this wish for a balance between digital efficiency and personal advice. Two thirds (64%) of the consumers thought that the human aspect of the online customer experience is neglected by businesses. And 76% of respondents confirmed the added value of personal advice from real people, especially when buying expensive products or complex services. 75% also expressed a desire for personal support by a human advisor when automated personalization tools reach the limits of their capacities.
Customer support: long waiting times and inefficient processes are particularly frustrating
The vast majority of customers often find customer support inefficient and frustrating: only 12% state that they are not bothered if their questions cannot be answered immediately. 96% find it at least a little or even very annoying to have to wait on hold for a long time. The necessity of not being able to resolve a matter in a single call or chat bothers 94% of customers.
How businesses can leverage the benefits of the human touch
The study shows clearly that many businesses still need to learn to better understand the needs of their customers to offer the right advice in real-time. This can only succeed if they see the human touch as an opportunity to combine technology and human interaction in a way that enriches and deepens the customer experience.
Human contact options such as video calls, video shopping or click-to-call represent forward-looking service innovations that go far beyond what automated systems and artificial intelligence can achieve: “CoreMedia helps companies to transform centralized customer data into personalized experiences in real-time, through which each customer can be individually provided with content that is relevant to them. By proactively addressing these customer needs, companies can increase conversions and average purchase value," emphasizes Stamer.
For more information about the study and how CoreMedia can help businesses to implement personalized shopping experiences with a human touch, visit www.coremedia.com.
* For this online survey Innofact asked internet users of 16 years and older in a representative sample (by age group, gender and region) in Germany, France, Italy, UK and the USA.
About CoreMedia
CoreMedia is a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP), uniquely pairing a powerful Content Cloud with a data-driven Engagement Cloud, designed to elevate experience and drive impact.
The CoreMedia Experience Platform empowers global brands to guide consumers through their buying journey by ensuring the right information gets to the right customer at the right time, leveraging more channels than any other DXP. No matter if it’s on the website, in the app, or via social media - through AI-chatbots, messaging apps, voice and video calls with human interactions - buying journeys are made easy and exciting.
Ambitious global B2C and B2B brands, such as Deckers Brands, Esprit, Deutsche Telekom, Henkel, and Finnair, rely on CoreMedia to go beyond the limits of customer experiences.
