Guest Blog: How to Build a Customer Experience that Resonates with Millennials

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Tamar Frumkin writes about Generation Y and what we need to do to provide a positive customer experience for millennials. This is a huge population and we had better be prepared.  – Shep Hyken

The Generation Y hype is reaching almost a frenzied state, but there is a good reason why. This is a new breed of consumer. This group of our society (the biggest generation in world history), is comprised of a varied group of tech junkies. The elder ones came to age during the cusp of the internet’s inception. The rest have existed in a social media/smartphone world. They are taking their rightful position as decision makers and market definers, saturating their will and expectations into our customer experience maps.

Here is my five-point starter plan for you to create an impactful experience for your millennial customers.

1. Don’t Keep Them Waiting

The raw truth is that speed and efficiency are what all of your customers are seeking. This is basic. For example, 73% of millennials, ages 18-24, say that “valuing my time” is the most important thing in providing good customer service. Dealing with issues and answering questions should be only a small slice of your clients’ already overbooked life and bursting social calendars.

What to do: Understand their time. Use your site logs to establish a comprehensive picture of the time shoppers spend with you then clear out any clutter on the pages to get them where they need to go fast.

2. Be Everywhere

Millennials are hardwired to adapt to every new technological advance and expect nothing less of the brands they engage with. When millennials need answers, they are going to define which channel is most comfortable for them. Perhaps that means sending out a quick tweet, scanning your site for self-service or seeking answers via forums.

What to do: Have a foolproof social plan in place to respond to issues posed on social media, employ a self-service solution and ensure that every part of their journey is mobile-friendly.

3. Be Accessible All the Time

Your millennial customers are plugged in all the time. In fact, eight in 10 say that they sleep with a cell phone glowing by the bed (Pew Research Center). They are always on, multi-tasking and dealing with their needs in between managing their lush social media lives and mass consumption of endless content online. If the experience you are offering millennials has limited availability, their loyalty to you will fizzle as fast as they can click to the competition.

What to do: Start off by analyzing which hours you receive the biggest “rushes” in queries and support activity. Employ a digital customer assistant to deflect the repetitive issues so that any personnel increases can be minimal.

4. Personalize When it Matters

Brands that combine technology with innovative personalization techniques across the customer experience will win Gen Y’s loyalty. Millennials like to serve themselves but they also seek meaningful interactions with your organization. By delivering answers based on geo-location, past order history, account status and more, you will meet millennials’ personalization expectations – and possibly even exceed them.

What to do: Take a cue from some brands doing right by Gen Y, such as Eat24, Sephora, Waze and StitchFix to name a few. Offer personalized online perks, end-to-end knowledge sharing about their queries at every touch point and smart algorithms offering relevant content and products via a recommendation engine.

5. Nurture a Diverse Environment

Millennials view diversity as a representation of equality and protection to all, regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. According to studies conducted by Pew, Generation Y is the most racially tolerant generation in history. Also, nearly seven in 10 millennials back same-sex marriage, more than 10 points higher than any other generation. (Pew Research) Your company culture, branding and ethics should support diversity.

What to do: You should create a collaborative environment where open participation is fostered by allowing feedback, keeping your company’s protocols as transparent as possible and allowing your customers to have meaningful engagements on social media.

Tamar Frumkin is the Head of Inbound Marketing at nanorep, a cloud-based digital customer assistant that provides actionable answers relevant to each individual. Tamar’s expertise in content marketing has developed during her past 8 years in the technology sector. Her experience spans fashion tech, ad tech, and B2B SaaS with a focus on strategy, content, and branding. 

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com. Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:

Are You Managing Your Company’s Great Expectations?