Millennials, those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, have surpassed the $10 trillion spending power mark globally in 2015, and have become a force to be reckoned with in the market. They have a different perspective towards customer service demanding organizations to change their style of service delivery and implementing a new customer experience strategy for the largest demographic. Millennials have sought to break the stigma of conventional customer service that failed to grab their attention, and holds a strong influence over older generations.
Here are 5 key strategies to make sure that your contact center is up for the millennial challenge:
#1. Proactive Engagement
Customer service strategies should be augmented to implement proactive engagement approaches to meet the demands of millennials. Proactive engagement is critical across generations, but millennials in particular are sensitive to instant gratification. Proactively rendering service and providing information can improve customer loyalty.
#2. Contextual Communication
Millennials are known to never stick to a specific channel while communicating with companies. They would initiate a conversation on social media, follow-up on a chat, and end it over a phone call. Simultaneously, they expect the company to maintain consistent messaging across all channels, without losing customer context. Companies should be capable of synchronising customer information from all channels, so the customer need not repeat him/herself again.
#3. Social Media Engagement
Social media presence has become the norm of the day. Browsing in social platforms is a daily practice among millennials. According to Forbes, 62% of millennials become a loyal customer if a brand engages with them on social networks. This has demanded organizations to leverage social media as an interaction tool to communicate with customers throughout the day. 57% of millennials resort to Facebook to vent out their frustrations and broadcast complaints.
#4. Intense Personalisation
Companies possess a trove of customer information waiting to be used. With data analytics, companies are able to personalize their offering and service to tailor to the needs and traits of the millennial. Companies can provide personalized customer service by connecting behavioural and social data to individual customers.
#5. Mirror their Language
Millennials strongly believe in conversations. They are exceedingly informal, and wish to communicate outside the confinement of company premise. They speak in tweets, texts and Facebook posts. To reach out to them, companies should speak in their language, reflect on their perception, and ditch the scripts.
