| There was a guy at Backcountry.com named William Bowen. He was an account manager at the online gear empire and I was his account ... or at least one of them. Bowen first e-mailed me in December 2017, explaining that he had been assigned as my "personal gearhead" and, as such, would be my direct point of contact for any kind of customer service. He also promised to hold items for me and retroactively provide refunds if something I bought later went on sale. No doubt, there was a lot of e-mail automation involved, but this was a real fellow with an Instagram account and a LinkedIn page. For years, he would ping me about upcoming sales, ask how a recent purchase was working out or share some of his mountain biking photos. Things are getting weird in digital retail and the smartest web stores are going to great lengths to approximate an analog experience. Walmart, Saks, Signet Jewelers other retail giants are frantically hiring personal shoppers to video chat with their best customers or even make house calls. No doubt these employees are expensive -- far more so than a skeleton call-center crew -- but they are also becoming imperative. As COVID locked down the world, internet laggards rushed to figure out e-commerce and generally welcomed intoxicating success. Now, however, they are dealing with the hangover, specifically returns. The share of online purchases that get sent back are at least 30% higher than the same stuff bought in person. And the problem got worse in lockdown; e-commerce returns surged 70% last year, as a swath of shoppers started clicking "buy" for the first time, according to the Wall Street Journal. In addition to the online hand-holding, loyalty programs, virtual fitting rooms and made-to-measure apparel are having a moment. H&M, for example, is offering bespoke jeans. Mind you, this is all b-school 101: the cost of keeping a customer is almost always far less than the cost of acquiring one. Online that spread is wider, because a returning customer is more familiar with the products, the style, the sizing and generally know what they want. They're far less likely to order six variations of the same sweater and send back five. My buddy Bowen at Backcountry.com moved on to another company. Rest assured, I have a new "account manager." In fact, I now have a guy, as the saying goes, at a few different brands -- all of them entirely unsolicited.  Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Feb. 15, 2021. Subscribe now. Photo: The Photo Access/Alamy Stock Photo | 
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