Selling to Gen Y [infographic]"/> 
It’s official! The Generation that grew up with Disney movies, Barney, and Hocus Pocus every Halloween has finally grown up and are now the generation that is entering the job market. Acclaimed to be the biggest generation after baby boomers, Millennials aren’t force to be reckon with when it comes to their spending dollars and the ability to cause major chaos to a brand.
Aside from their willingness to spend as youngsters in general, they have extreme high standards when it comes to customer service. They’ve been raised on the internet and are huge when it comes to embracing smartphone technology.
Technology in general has highly raised the stakes when it comes to customer service as it’s generally fast, personalized, transparent and has a good level of control from the customer. Aspects of customer service that are no longer optional for business, it’s a must!
This generation isn’t “wowed” by technology and everything that was amazing and innovative ten years ago is now part of the typical life of a millennial. If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then a smartphone is the vowed down married spouse of a millennial. Generally it’s their life from shopping, music, coupons, navigation, and, let’s not forget, socialization.
Merchants need to be on top technology!
If your customer base is mostly 20-somethings or even remotely, you need to get hooked on that same addictive drug that makes a 20-something want to check their phone every 30 mins which is social media (among many other things).
This may not be the first time you’re hearing this as a business that you have to be “social” but it’s more the case for the millennial audience. Most millennials (like myself) check social all the time even before we get out of bed.
We also are more willing to reach out to a brand and vent out about a brand on social if they aren’t doing a good job. No reply from a brand on social is the equivalent of a brand hanging up the phone on a customer, that’s a lost opportunity for brands!
Millennials love to be included in a brand
Brands who do social campaigns that target millennials generally get more involvement online if that campaign includes their participation on social. While huge brands can easily pull this off more so than smaller companies, you have better chances of targeting millennials via social when you “feature” them or make them feel in some way special.
For a small company that could be mentioning a customer in a tweet, have a customer win a contest, or in some small way make them feel the center of the brand by also letting them shape your reputation with reviews.
They are willing to move
Just like a summer fling, these kids are ready to move on to the next person if their needs are not met in business. You’ll have to make sure they get attended immediately!
While Gen Y has a harsh rap for being a delusional “spoiled” generation who think they are a protagonist in a fairy tale by baby boomers, to some extent that’s true based on their standards of high quality customer service.
This generation is really no different to other generations when it comes to customer service in general, they’ve only set a higher mark for marketers and small business a like out there.
Sources:
Solomon, Micah. “What Kind Of Customer Experience Are Millennials (Gen-Y) Looking For?” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 23 June 2014. Web.
Gibson, Ryan. “Generation Y Stereotypes — Millennial Generation Stereotypes.”Generation Y. N.p., 4 Feb. 2013.
