Poor Customer Service Holding Back E-Commerce Sales

Decisions Affected by Lack of Human Assistance

Earlier this month comScore released its Q2 retail e-commerce sales estimates, which indicated that US online retail spending dropped from the same period from last year. This is only the second time that has happened.

Sure, you have to take the economy into consideration, but there are other factors that can keep people from making purchases online. A new poll from Harris Interactive found that a lack of human assistance is one of those factors, and a big one at that.

Here are some interesting findings from that poll:

- 4 in 5 online adults who have purchased items online in the last six months (77%) say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making certain online purchases.

- However, over 4 in 5 (82%) say there have been times when they have not been able to get help from a real person.

- Over half (52%) of those who haven't been able to get the help they needed from a real person say it's affected their decision to not purchase the product.

Just look at the following graphs:

"No level of automation can replace the human touch. The results indicate that shoppers still want real people to help them purchase products, even in a digital setting," said Prashant Nedungadi, CEO and founder of IMshopping, who commissioned the survey. "Many retailers have started taking steps in this direction and we believe it will be the single biggest push for the retail industry over the next several years."

The following graph shows some of the types of items people really want human assistance with before making purchasing decisions.
Out of the people who have purchased items online in the past six months, the most commonly purchased items include clothing, books, music, health and beauty products, and travel-related items.

While it is a good idea to make the online purchase as easy on your customers as possible, from simply the design and usability standpoint, you may consider whether or not you are offering enough human assistance, and how easy that is for the customer to obtain.