The Demise of Face-to-Face Interactions has led to a Customer Service Crisis

We used to go to dinner, but now we order through apps like DoorDash. We used to go to the stores, but now we buy online. We used to work in offices, but now we work from home. We used to meet potential dating partners at social events, but now we swipe right on dating apps. We used to have client meetings at offices, but now we meet virtually over Zoom. We used to attend conferences, but now we watch them online. The list goes on and on. As a result, we have significantly fewer face-to-face interactions.

*Related – The Loneliness Epidemic

Face-to-Face Interactions Have Fallen Dramatically

Americans today spend far less time interacting face-to-face than 30 years ago. Time use surveys reveal a steep drop in in-person social time. For example, weekly hours spent with friends plummeted from about 6.5 hours per week a decade or two ago to only 2 hours and 45 minutes per week by 2021. This represents well over a 50% decline in friend interactions. American adults in the early 2020s spend roughly 30% less time on face-to-face socializing than they did 20 years earlier. The change is even more dramatic for young people: teenagers’ in-person social time fell by almost 50% in the same period. One national analysis found that daily socializing with friends dropped from about 60 minutes per day in 2003 to just 20 minutes per day in 2020. Consistently, the average American now spends more time alone – about 5.5 hours alone per day, up from 4.75 hours in 2003. In short, face-to-face interactions have steadily declined in frequency and duration since the 1990s.

Long-term trends in social connection and trust

The General Social Survey shows the share of Americans frequently socializing with neighbors fell from 44% in the 1970s to 28% by 2022, while over the same period, 46% of Americans said that others could be trusted, whereas only 26% of Americans say the same today.

*Related – The Most Important Customer Service Skills Your Employees Need To Have

Shrinking Social Circles and Community Engagement

Not only are people spending less time in person, but they also report having fewer close social

connections than in past decades. National surveys show that Americans’ social circles have shrunk: the number of close friends has declined, and more people report having no one to confide in. The proportion of Americans with three or fewer close friends nearly doubled from 27% in 1990 to 49% in 2021. Earlier research noted that the share of Americans with zero confidants (no close person to discuss important matters with) tripled between 1985 and 2004. This indicates rising social isolation – many people have fewer face-to-face relationships in which to engage.

The explosion of digital technology over the past 15–20 years has profoundly impacted face-to-face interaction. Smartphones, social media, and texting now allow people to connect without being physically together, and evidence suggests this often displaces some in-person communication. Especially since the early 2010s, the smartphone adoption timeline coincides with sharper declines in face-to-face socializing. The number of adolescents who go out with friends frequently slowly declined in the 1990s and 2000s, but after 2012, it “fell off a cliff,” according to analysts. By the late 2010s, teens were spending far more 3 time online and correspondingly 45% less time with friends in person compared to the early 2000s.

*Related – Why Human Moments are More Critical than Ever

Social Displacement

For adults too, digital communication often replaces or interrupts face-to-face conversations. Many Americans now default to texting or social media to “catch up” with friends, reducing the need for in-person visits. Social media use has skyrocketed, and some studies find that heavy social media users have fewer in-person interactions and feel more socially isolated. In short, technology has made it easier to stay connected remotely, but this convenience appears to have come at the cost of less frequent physical togetherness.

In the 1990s and even 2000s, most people worked on-site, generating daily in-person contact with colleagues and customers. Today, a much larger workforce works from home, meaning fewer daily face-to-face encounters during the workday. This shift translates to millions of Americans no longer chatting with coworkers at the office or meeting clients in person each day. Casual workplace conversations, lunch meetups, and Keurig conversations, once a regular part of daily life, have been reduced for those working from home.

Lack of Service Aptitude Skills

My favorite podcaster, Scott Galloway recently said, “More than half of 18-24 males have never asked a woman out in person. Think about how tragic that is, that these young men are not developing the social skills…the ability to open and establish contact and connection with someone.” This is frightening. You can check out the entire interview (around 4 minute mark, he starts talking about young men).

Gen Z has Telephobia

Do you remember when the primary method of communication was calling someone? Can you remember that long ago? Things have changed a little bit. Today, tech-savvy Gen Z is consumed with anxiety by picking up the phone. “Telephobia is a fear or anxiety around making and receiving telephone calls,” according to Liz Baxter, a careers advisor at Nottingham College in the UK.

To help, there are now telephobia courses to teach lost art of a call. “They’ve [Gen Z] just simply not had the opportunity for making and receiving telephone calls. It is not the main function of their phones these days, they can do anything on the phone, but we automatically default to texting, voice notes, and anything except actually using a telephone for its original intended purpose, and so people have lost that skill,” she explained in a CNBC interview.

Service Aptitude skills do not apply to the technical or operational side of the experience. However, they are among the most critical parts of an organization’s customer experience. The quality of your customer service and your organization’s customer service level comes down to one thing and one thing only. The average service aptitude of every employee you have.

Service Aptitude: A person’s ability to recognize opportunities to meet and exceed customers’ expectations, regardless of the circumstances.

Service aptitude represents the hospitality side only. This means how an employee makes another person feel. To be a company that consistently delivers outstanding customer service by all, these characteristics need to be screened for in the interview process, a mandatory part of your new employee training, and constantly revisited with your existing employees.

While these skills seem like basic expectations of individuals in the workforce, one study showed that nearly 60% of leaders in the U.S. believe it’s difficult to find candidates with soft skills. That is why it is the burden of companies and the training they provide to develop these constantly.

People Are Starving for Relationships Like Never Before

Technology has provided us with unprecedented advances, information, knowledge, instant access, and entertainment. For all the benefits it brings to businesses, it comes at a significant cost. The cost is weaker human relationships, vital to customer experiences, employee experiences, and personal happiness. As a society, we are now relationship disadvantaged. As convenient as these advances make our lives, they have also changed how we communicate, behave, and think, dramatically declining our people skills.

Rebuild the lost art of human connection. Start with your team today.

Book a complimentary advisory call with a DiJulius Group expert today. You’ll learn how to empower your team, consistently create exceptional experiences, and, ultimately, build a culture that keeps top talent and loyal customers coming back.