- July 15, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
An associate professor of marketing at The University of Texas at Arlington says digital avatars can replace a sales force and customer service employees at a fraction of the cost.
In this context, avatars are typically computer-generated representations of people. UTA Associate Professor Fred Miao says they can fill the void in interactive assistance that a majority of shoppers says they want.
“An Accenture survey of online shoppers shows that 62% never completed their purchases because there was no real-time customer service or support. That Accenture survey also shows that 90% of those shoppers wanted some sort of interactive assistance during the shopping process,” said Miao, faculty fellow of the John Merrill Endowed Professorship in Consultative Sales in UTA’s College of Business. “Avatars, used in the right way, can fill this void at a fraction of the cost of hiring and training human salespeople and service employees.”
Miao’s paper, “An…
