Customers 1st: Generation Y

Showing posts with label Generation Y. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Creating a Millennial-Friendly Customer Experience

Retailers today are striving to make sure that their companies provide a millennial-friendly customer experience. As a millennial myself, I have been fortunate enough to have grown up in a more advanced technological world where I, like many others in a similar age bracket, will have been more tech savvy than their parents by their early teens. Customer experience for millennials has been molded by the increasing number of platforms available for retail and this creates opportunities and challenges for retailers.

Monitoring online social experiences are seen as a must for retail companies; consumers are often flocking to the web to look for answers to issues as well as contacting a call center or an online chat for information. The web has a huge number of forums and communities where consumers go to discuss products and are in my eyes a great resource for gaining first hand insights into exactly what customers want or think about products. Often, companies only monitor comments from customers on their own sites and may miss people’s comments from sites such as TripAdvisor or other discussion rooms.

Social media sites such as twitter are now becoming a popular resource for companies to talk to customers. According to Forbes, millennials take up 29 percent of the twitter-sphere and use the platform for commenting on purchases; leveraging the resource to monitor posts and often responding via twitter can give the customer a sense of being personally looked after rather than having to wait on hold whilst a customer representative at a call center keeps you on hold for three hours.

Giving the customer a more personalized feel is deemed another priority in giving a better customer experience. Repeating personal information that could have been retained by companies I find very irritating. Fundamental information such as contact information and home addresses I expect to be able to be seen across different platforms and having to re-input information could put customers off returning. Being able to access personal information and interests is key to giving a customer a comfortable and easy experience. Online retailers such as Amazon and ASOS retain previous purchase information or what has been searched for in order to give suggestions. I believe the next step would be to take that technique in store.

The world is becoming far more interconnected; so I believe creating systems that register a smartphone when a person has entered a store can bring up information of again past purchases so that a shop assistant would be able to give the customer a more personal experience.

Catering to the desires of the millennial generation could be a great opportunity to boost customer satisfaction. Other strategies could be being more engaged in price comparison or giving more of a story behind a product rather than just it being made for profit. TOMS shoes is a prime example, it helps the consumer appreciate the company for doing something to help rather than just making money. Millennials have grown up in a world where global issues such as poverty and climate change are often at the forefront of discussions; so creating a retail platform that goes beyond wanting to make an easy buck, for me and I’m sure many others, would be the difference in choosing between two retailers.

About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Millennials and Beauty: Serving the Eye of a New Generation of Customers

According to a recent Future in Focus report, by 2017 the Millennial generation, also known as Gen Y, is predicted to surpass the boomer generation in spending power and become the most active spenders of the first half of the 21st century. The report dove into Millennial consumer behavior regarding beauty, identifying and exploring attitudes and values that will shape their purchasing patterns over the next decade.

Shaped by the digital age and the economic recession, this large generation of 70 million in the U.S. has different priorities, shopping behaviors, and attitudes from other generations. In fact, this always-connected generation has concerns about their l finances that the older generation of spenders did not at their age, and they are more ethnically and racially diverse than any generation before them. In fact, among adults age 18 to 29, just 61% are Caucasian (compared to 70% of older adults), while 19% are Hispanic (vs. 13% of older adults), 14% African-American (vs. 11%), and 5% Asian. In addition, Millennials are economically diverse—with one-third being lower income, one-third middle income, and one-third upper income.

Millennials are the first to grow up with ubiquitous information so they tend to have an affinity for the digital age and are always connected. Five of six (83%) say they sleep with a mobile phone next to their bed, compared to just 57% of all adults. They also use the Internet primarily as a social tool, with 75% reporting having a profile on social media. And 80% of younger Millennial social media users (i.e., 18 to 24 years old) connect with their platforms several times a day. But this constant connection applies to their consumer lives as well: 41% regularly use their phones to compare prices while shopping, compared to just 26% of boomers.

This generation was hit hard by the Great Recession. As late as 2012, 32% of Millennial shoppers reported having difficulty affording groceries, compared to just 22% of the overall population. As a result, Gen Y tends to be more frugal than older generations. In 2013, 22% of Millennials (compared to just 17% of Xers and 14% of boomers) said they were putting more money into savings during the previous year. Still, Millennials have made beauty and personal-care rituals part of their culture no matter the economic situation. They are developing attitudes regarding beauty that will influence the products they seek. Six of the most pervasive attitudes are beauty is a fun way to express oneself; beauty is worth the expense; beauty is way more than skin deep; you’re never too young for anti-aging; do-it-yourself beauty ; beauty is not just for women and; beauty is a fun way to express oneself.

Research by Mintel suggests that Millennial women associate beauty with fun more than women of older generations. For instance, two out of three 18- to 24-year-old women (65%) enjoy the ritual of putting on makeup—a share nearly 50% higher than that of all women (45%). Nearly two in three Gen Y women say they wear makeup every day, and nearly half (48%) say they spend more than 10 minutes putting on makeup. In addition to having fun with it, most Millennials see beauty care as another way to express themselves. More than two in three women age 18 to 24 (69%) say they wear makeup that expresses their personality, compared to just 55% of all women. Their ability to express themselves through beauty may be part of the reason that almost all (94%) Gen Y women say that makeup helps them feel more confident.

Millennials seem to think that enhancing their beauty is worth the expense. In fact, they spend more than the average shopper on beauty and personal care categories. Millennial shoppers spend over 25% more than average US shoppers on such products as body scrubbers, shampoo, conditioner, styling gels or mousses, and suntan products, and 20% more on cosmetics. A significant majority (75%) of Millennial women say they don’t mind spending money on makeup because it makes them feel good.

Additionally, unlike older generations, Millennials are more attuned to skincare and anti-aging benefits at an early age. According to NPD, 39% of older Millennial women (those age 25 to 34) say that anti-aging is an important benefit that they look for in skincare products. While younger Millennials are often still dealing with acne, older Millennials are growing aware that changes in their skin during early adulthood may mark the beginning of an aging process.

But, Millennials take a more self-driven, DIY approach to beauty care. Although influenced by their frugal nature, Millennials’ do-it-yourself approach to beauty may also be motivated by the fun they have experimenting with new products. Millennials are twice as likely as the overall population to embrace self-reliant, home-based beauty behaviors and at-home beauty products.

Driven by social media and the increasing competitiveness of the job market, Millennial men also think beauty matters too. They are putting a greater emphasis than older generations did on looking and dressing their best, which involves both fashion and grooming. In 2013, more than three in four men (76%) said that the pressure on men to dress well and be well groomed had increased. Nearly as many (73%) think that men now face as much pressure in these respects as women do. For Millennial men, grooming is increasingly seen as a component of healthy living, like exercise and eating well.

From beauty companies’ point of view, Millennials are at a critical stage in their lives. Millennials are establishing beauty and skincare habits and consumer patterns that are likely to persist throughout their lifetime. So, the companies and brands that win Gen Y consumers are likely to retain these consumers for the long term.

To read the full report, click here.

Friday, December 5, 2008

The next generation's customer service

I found this article at Business Week which addresses how PNC Bank is attracting new customers daily. They're attracting 130 new customers a day for their simplistic new checking account called "The Virtual Wallet." They've spoken to the Generation Y by giving them a simplistic way manage their money online, with three simple options Spend, Reserve, and Growth. They've also limited the number of checks they can write in a month, and charge for transferring money over the phone.

Do you see this as the customer service of the future? PNC Bank has created a system where the only way they interact with their customer is through a website, but it's very popular with the young consumer, who will domoinate the market in 20 years. What do you think?