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New Study: 95% of Consumers Don’t Want to Talk to a Robot When Shopping

Furniture World News Desk on 1/16/2019


According to a new study conducted by Oracle NetSuite in partnership with Wakefield Research and Bob Phibbs (the Retail Doctor), people do not want to speak with robots while shopping in store or online. The global study of 1,200 consumers and 400 retail executives across the U.S., U.K. and Australia found a huge disconnect between shopper demands and what retailers deliver in areas spanning the overall retail environment, social media, personalization and the use of advanced technologies such as AI, VR and chatbots.

“These findings point to a clear and urgent need for better customer service and a renewed commitment from retailers to provide the best possible in-store experience,” said Bob Phibbs, CEO of The Retail Doctor. “No retailer wants their customers to be confused or anxious, yet more than half of respondents have felt that way while shopping. Customers will only feel confident if they develop an emotional connection to the brand. This happens when retailers foster positive, helpful in-store interactions; contrary to popular belief, millennials really want store employees to help them. With nearly every respondent reporting that they value brick-and- mortar stores, now is the time to stand out by crafting every in-store interaction with the goal of keeping shoppers coming back.”

Mind the Gap: Retailers and Consumer Are on Very Different Pages
Despite significant investments in enhancing the customer experience online and in store, retailers are not able to keep up with rapidly changing customer expectations and this is creating a huge disconnect.

  • 73 percent of retail executives believe that the overall environment in retail stores has become more inviting in the last 5 years. Only 45 percent of consumers agree, with 19 percent stating it has become less inviting.

  • 80 percent of retail executives believe that consumers would feel more welcome if in- store staff interacted with them more. Less than half (46 percent) of consumers agree, with 28 percent noting they would feel more annoyed.

  • 79 percent of retail executives believe chatbots are meeting consumer needs. Two thirds of consumers (66 percent) disagree, with respondents noting that chatbots are currently more damaging to the shopping experience than helpful.

  • Almost all (98 percent) retail executives think that engaging with customers on social media is important to building stronger relationships with them. Only 12 percent of consumers think it has a significant impact on the way they think or feel about a brand.

Personalization is Proving a Problem
Despite almost half of half of consumers (42 percent) – and almost two thirds of millennials (63 percent) - noting that they would pay more for improved personalization, only 11 percent of retail executives believe that their staff has the tools and information needed to give consumers a personalized experience. The gap between consumer demand for improved personalization and retailer’s ability to deliver is damaging the customer experience.

  • 80 percent of consumers do not feel they are provided with a personalized shopping experience both in-store and online.

  • More than half (58 percent) of consumers are uncomfortable with the way stores use technology to improve personalization in their shopping experience and almost half (45 percent) reported negative emotions when they receive personalized offers online.

  • The majority of consumers (53 percent) felt negative emotions ( the last time they visited a store; only 39 percent feel confident in retail stores today.

Shiny New Technologies Are Not the Silver Bullet
While retailers are aware that they don’t have the tools and information needed to meet rapidly changing customer expectations, the study found that hyped technologies such as AI and VR are not yet the answer.

  • Nearly all (90 percent) retail executives are not confident the use of advanced technologies to customize the shopping experience is meeting consumer’s needs.

  • 79 percent of retailer executives believe having VR and AI in stores will increase sales; only 14 percent of consumers believe the technologies will have a significant impact on their purchase decisions.

  • Almost all (98 percent) retail executives believe VR and AI will increase foot traffic; 48 percent of consumers do not think VR or AI would have any impact on how likely they are to go into a store.

A Simple and Streamlined Future
Despite the popularity of online shopping, physical stories aren’t going anywhere. As long as retailers keep the experience easy and seamless, consumers will keep shopping in store.

  • Nearly all (97 percent) of consumers agree there is a need to go into a physical store to purchase items and the majority (70 percent) believe the most appealing retail stores have features that simplify and streamline the shopping experience.

  • The top features attracting consumers to physical stores are options consistent with online (36 percent), simpler store layouts (35 percent), staff orders on mobile device (29 percent) and in-store kiosks that allow consumers to purchase products that are unavailable in-store (23 percent).

  • The top technology advancements that consumers want to utilize when shopping in store or online are self-checkout kiosks (38 percent), virtual reality try-on (23 percent) and mobile payments (15 percent). Only 5 percent of consumers selected robots and chatbots as the technologies they most want to utilize.


“Consumer expectations are not only rapidly changing, but exactly what expectations looks like varies from person to person and moment to moment. This makes it incredibly hard for retailers to keep up,” said Matthew Rhodus, director of retail, Oracle NetSuite. “The results of this survey show that while the retail industry is often considered to be at the forefront of consumer experience innovation, there’s still a long way to go to meet shopper expectations. What this means is the opportunity for retailers to improve the relationship with consumers is tremendous.”

Methodology
 
For this survey, 1,200 consumers and 400 retail executives were surveyed around the overall retail environment, in-store and online shopping experiences and advanced technologies. Both, retailers and consumers were surveyed from three global markets including the U.S., U.K. and Australia with retail executives representing organizations between $10-100 million in annual sales.


About Wakefield Research: Wakefield Research is a full-service research agency and partner to the world’s most recognizable brands and agencies, including 50 of the Fortune 100. The firm conducts research in 66 countries and provides quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research. Wakefield’s surveys appear daily in top-tier media.

The firm’s staff has the classical training of career researchers, but they have also worked in public relations firms, marketing and ad agencies, news organizations, political communications companies, and non-profit organizations. This uniquely valuable background informs the marketing and positioning of some of the most prominent brands in the marketplace.

For more information, visit https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/

About The Retail Doctor: The Retail Doctor is a New York-based retail consulting firm created by expert retail consultant and leading business mentor Bob Phibbs. With over 30 years of experience in retail, Bob has worked as a consultant, speaker, and entrepreneur, helping businesses revolutionize their brand and grow their success. Bob is also the author of three highly-praised books, including The Retail Doctor's Guide to Growing Your Business (WILEY). His clients include some of the largest retail brands in the world including Bernina, Brother, Caesars Palace, Hunter Douglas, Lego, Omega and Yamaha. For more information, visit www.retaildoc.com.

 

About Oracle NetSuite: For more than 20 years, Oracle NetSuite has helped organizations grow, scale and adapt to change. NetSuite provides a suite of cloud-based applications, which includes financials / Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR, professional services automation and omnichannel commerce, used by more than 16,000 customers in 203 countries and dependent territories.

For more information, visit http://www.netsuite.com.

About Oracle: The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in- class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.