By Elisa Foster
The Internet has certainly made life easier for consumers and businesses; purchases and transactions can be made from the comfort of one’s home or office. However, there is a downside to this trend: customers who once had to be physically present and conduct business face-to-face (e.g., at a department store or bank) are rendered virtually invisible by the conveniences of modern technology. We like to call them “invisible customers.”
In this series of posts, we will explore the impact of invisible customers on retail businesses, service providers and the overall economy. We will also give some advice to those businesses that want to reach beyond the computer screen, build a relationship and reconnect with their invisible customers.
First, we’d like to figure out which industries are seeing the most growth in their invisible customer market. At a brainstorming session of Meliorites, we realized that the possibilities are endless. However, we decided that the banking industry is a great example: over the past several years, we’ve seen a huge push to get bank customers to handle their business online.
Stay tuned for details about our research on this topic. In the meantime, what industries do you think are seeing an increase of invisible customers? Is this a good or bad trend? Feel free to discuss in the comments below!