According to the Salesforce Connected Consumer Report, 86% of respondents say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, and 68% of consumers want brands to show empathy.
The report highlights that in the context of interaction via digital channels, it is essential to integrate empathy into the customer experience, and that the difference between the experience offered and consumers’ expectations in terms of digital empathy can generate significant impacts.
Luciano Grunitzhy, director and president of medical e-commerce magazine Médica, says that to ensure humanized service on digital channels, technology and human resources must act in an integrated manner.
“Anything that does not require direct intervention can be automated, while situations that require sensitivity or address customer issues should be handled by trained professionals. This balance allows us to offer a personalized service — considered a competitive differentiator in e-commerce,” reiterates the manager.
A study published in the Journal of Marketing analyzed more than 300 studies to understand when virtual assistants – such as robots, chatbots and algorithms – can replace human agents in customer service and marketing tasks and when to maintain a human presence. The analysis showed that users value the speed and accuracy of virtual assistants, while empathy or human interaction has little impact on evaluating the performance of these systems.
Data published by Exame magazine reveals that 44% of consumers feel frustrated because they are unable to move from an automated service to a human agent, 60% stop buying after unfriendly service, and 96% of customers abandon a brand after a poor service experience.
Hyper-personalization at scale
The director of Magazine Médica emphasizes that one of the best practices in digital service is to consider the customer from the perspective of Lifetime Value. “This means considering the history of interactions, the prospects for future actions, the relationship with the brand and the individual characteristics of each consumer, looking at the human being behind the screen and not just the sale itself,” he clarifies.
Magazine Médica offers personalization for each type of customer through a large-scale hyper-personalization strategy.
“I believe that the future of customer experience in e-commerce will be centered on hyperpersonalization on a large scale, allowing us to offer personalized service even in large volumes, resulting from the combination of technology and human action. Today, we work with specialized professionals in areas such as pharmacists, nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, biomedical professionals, who make up our team. This can make it easier to understand the customer’s needs”, reveals Grunitzhy.
Karol Kreuz, project manager at Magazine Médica, says that in the coming years the company will seek to reduce the distance between the customer and the brand, with an emphasis on welcoming the consumer.
“In the online shopping environment, especially in a specific segment like medical products, customer service is directly linked to security throughout the entire process. This ranges from website security to ensuring delivery times and quality, considering delivery in its broadest sense, that is, safe delivery,” concludes the manager.
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