Who wants to sit on the phone with a customer service agent? Not me. I’m hardly alone. The percentage of consumers who prefer to use the phone to reach a customer service agent fell seven percentage points between 2017 and 2013—to 47%, according to a 2017 Zendesk consumer survey. Meanwhile, the percentage of consumers opting for live chat has jumped 16 percentage points to 34% from 18% four years earlier. While Zendesk didn’t ask shoppers about social media-assisted customer service
in 2013, 17% cited it as their preferred channel for receiving help in 2017.
The abrupt shift in consumers’ customer service channel preferences is emblematic of the seemingly never-ending array of changes rocking the e-commerce industry. Keeping pace often requires…
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