E-stuff: In the rush for high tech, have we forgotten the high touch?
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Keywords: `high touch' solutions, one-to-one marketing, ful®lment, customer empowerment, customisation, community branding, b2e
E-stuff: In the rush for high tech, have we forgotten the high touch? Steve Reiman Received (in revised form): 16 August 2001
Abstract Business on the Net is really no different to old-economy principles Ð fundamentals such as one-to-one customer servicing, CRM programmes and interactivity are in fact probably even more crucial for internet businesses. Why? Now that we have potentially gone more `high tech', remote and impersonal via mobile, Internet and interactive media, research strongly suggests that consumers desire some compensating `high-touch' factors, such as individualised personal service, hand-holding guidance and highly tailored promotions. The stakes are, if anything, raised higher: these `high-touch' factors will continue to prove to be the critical success factors in business.
Introduction Balance between `high tech' and `high touch'
This paper seeks to demonstrate that there needs to be a `balancing effect' whenever new technology is introduced: `high-tech' solutions (remote, automation) invariably only become effective when `high touch' (human interaction, personalisation) is also present. There is an inherent danger that as we potentially go more remote in society Ð via the Internet, home shopping and mobile communications Ð strong counterbalancing drivers are needed to compensate for this lack of `high touch'. Why do we believe this to be true? For a start, there are precedents throughout history when technology has been introduced. When telephones were ®rst introduced over 100 years ago, they were thought to be useful only for business. They were deemed too impolite for social use, where the social mores and customs of the day demanded human interaction Ð hence messenger boys and calling cards. `The Americans may have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.' Sir William Preece, chief engineer, British Post Of®ce, 1876 When cars were introduced, the human touch again prevailed.
Steve Reiman The HPI Research Group, 10 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6BU, UK Tel: +44 (0)207 930 8111 E-mail: [email protected]
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`There will never be a mass market for motor cars Ð about 1,000 in Europe Ð because that is the limit on the number of chauffeurs available!' Spokesperson for Daimler Benz Remember tele-cottaging? In the early 1990s, it was predicted that many of us would leave our of®ces in droves and work from home via remote
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E-stuff: In the rush for high tech, have we forgotten the high touch? access. Not true Ð there has been a swing back to more of®ce-related environs, because people felt they were missing out on the latest issues and developments, and were starved of social interaction or even plain simple of®ce gossip. This paper thus seeks to show that in the
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