Women shun web, email for customer service

Women are more likely than men to prefer good old human contact over digital communications when they need to interact with businesses, according to new research.

Twenty-three per cent of men chose email or web as their preferred mode of customer service when dealing with retailers, travel agents, utilities and banks compared to 14 per cent of women, said a survey commissioned by BT.

Banking was the area with the greatest differences - one in three men preferred online banking as opposed to one in five women.

Women cited security as a primary concern here whereas it's not as great an issue for men.

Finance was the only sector where security was a significant factor in choosing interaction methods - nearly a quarter of both men and women named it for banking compared with just 10 per cent for all other sectors.

When it comes to communicating with travel agencies, more men still prefer online methods than women - but with less of a difference than in finance, about 30 per cent to 20 per cent, respectively.

Both sexes prefer face-to-face communications to online shopping though twice as many men than women are willing to buy from retail sites.

Across sectors, quality of the response was low down the list of determining factors. For men, speed and ease of communications were their main concerns in customer service; for women it was human contact and the desire to stick with tradition.

The survey, carried out by Coleman Parks, consisted of 1,868 interviews with individuals in Europe and Asia-Pacific.