Deloitte Consulting Thursday said its survey had found a variety of changing consumer attitudes in
the newly-wired societies of France, Germany, Italy and the UK.
The main finding of the survey is that consumers say they expect
to shift their allegiance from traditional channels towards
technology-based communication with companies via the Internet
and call centres during the next five years.
“Our survey shows the technology gap between consumers’ awareness
and their adoption of new technology and new channels is shrinking
and that as a result of this European consumers are now signalling
a wake up call to business,” said David Owen, customer relationship
management (CRM) practice leader for Europe at Deloitte Consulting.
“There is clear evidence of a pent-up ‘permission pool’ – where for
the first time consumers are showing signs of a massive willingness
to be communicated with and sold to across these new channels. 43
per cent of European consumers already say that remote technology fits
with their lifestyle.”
The survey, conducted for Deloitte by MORI New Media, is thought to
be the first of its kind ever undertaken. Its main findings will
be published in Deloitte Consulting’s Customer Relationship Report
in mid-January.
For the Internet industry, one important finding is that Europeans
will accept the Internet as one of the main channels for dealing with
companies. It will be on a par with the telephone, says Deloitte.
“It is very clear that consumers expect to see a massive shift towards
new technologies over the next five years,” added David Owen.
“Given the pace at which the technology is evolving they could easily
find these scenarios emerging much more quickly — even within the
next one to two years.
For the survey, MORI New Media interviewed 1,000 people in France,
Germany, Italy and the UK.