Humans and Digital Technologies in the Omnichannel Post-COVID-19 Era

Consumer behavioral patterns radically changed during the last decades, as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic. In parallel, digital technologies continuously substitute traditional business practices in the context of digital transformation attempts that were also significantly accelerated due to the pandemic. However, since technology cannot totally replace all human aspects in the retailer-consumer interaction process, an optimum blending of technical and human resources is crucial. This chapter reviews the latest developments and key aspects of this blending and emphasizes the consumers' needs for the provision of value-added services by retailers in the post-COVID-19 era. It advocates that retailing remains a retailer-consumer affair, where both humans and technologies take part in diversified interactions. It develops an integrated framework of human and technology components and channels between retailer-consumer interactions, aiming to provide a holistic view of the available capabilities and trends from both the retailer and the consumer perspective in the post-COVID-19 era.