Have we become so afraid of human touch that we can no longer effectively communicate with each other? One of the unfortunate results of our ultra-sensitive society is the fact that many people have concluded it would be far better to not touch another human being than to be accused of harassment for something as simple as a non-affectionate hug. We have pretty much instituted a hands-off policy towards any touching at all. It’s killing trust between people and that will have a giant impact on your bottom line.

There was a study done on the importance of human touch on sports teams by Dr. Dacher Keltner at UC Berkley. Sports seems to bring out the need to communicate with each other through physical contact – from high fives to chest bumps. Keltner found that NBA teams that touched each other the most won more games than those who did not. It is something that is visible. We might call it team chemistry when we see a basketball player shoot a free throw and his teammates all approach him to slap hands with him. Something is communicated in touching another human being and we pick up on it even if we do it subconsciously. On the flip side of things, if a basketball player makes a basket and none of his teammates touch him, as fans we read that the relationship between the players is strained. Keltner found that when NBA teammates did not touch, they had losing records. Do you suppose the same is true of your business teams? You can rest assured, it is.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day. He works sales for a manufacturer of heavy equipment components. You wouldn’t think that something as impersonal as steel cable would require human touch to sell. Think again. My friend explained how his company tried to put all of their products online and take their sales reps out of the field, but found that they were losing sales. Their customers required a human touch. He needed to press the palm of his customers’ hands if he expected them to buy from him. There is nothing wrong with online sales per se. But you must find a way to include a human touch to make it work. Otherwise, you are just a commodity – pared down to the lowest price.

How does this impact your marketing efforts? One of the big aspects of marketing to produce sales is building trust with your clients. If you and your brand cannot be trusted, you will not be able to produce sales. Something as simple as a handshake can either convey confidence or mistrust. It is an oddity of human behavior, but we can sense these things. In another experiment by Dr. Keltner, he had people on one side of a barrier put their arm through an opening in the barrier. A second person on the other side of the barrier was given the task of conveying a range of emotions by touching the first person’s forearm for only one second. Nothing was spoken between the two people. Keltner found that compassion was clearly understood in that one second touch by 60 percent of the people studied.

Here is the bottom line: customers more often leave a company because they have had a bad experience with an employee. Many times that has to do with little cues that you don’t intend to set off. It can be fixed by doing something as simple as taking the time to shake a customer’s hand and listen to them. Not doing so may be construed as poor customer service. One of the four reasons that a customer would not do business with you again is poor customer care. Training your employees to do something as simple as shake hands with a customer before and after a conversation may be the most effective thing you can do to retain your customers. There is something that is communicated by human touch… and there is also something that is communicated when it is absent.

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The Human Touch: 4 Reasons It’s Important, by Robyn Reisch, March 7, 2017, iheartintelligence.com

Hands On Research: The Science of Touch, by Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., September 29, 2010, Greater Good Magazine