A new Harris survey shows that the ability to talk to a human being still matters to consumers, particularly those who are searching for specific products online. Real estate, automobiles, and insurance top the list as products that require a human touch to sell:

“No level of automation can replace the human touch,” said Prashant Nedungadi, CEO and founder of IMshopping. “The results indicate that shoppers still want real people to help them purchase products, even in a digital setting.”

If true, these findings make you wonder exactly how the famed General Motors-eBay deal is going to work, beyond the obvious problems.  It’s not as if Skype has exactly worked out for eBay and allowed its users to actually get in touch with sellers over big-ticket items, which was the ostensible reason for that particular cluster. The report suggests that the failure on the part of companies to offer such contact opportunities to consumers accounts for at least some of the lackluster sales in these areas– a questionable claim, given the gutting of these two industries in the economic downturn:

via Online Shoppers Want Human Helping Hand – eMarketer.