To provide excellent customer service, a company must first build the right strategy. One of the best way to determine the right customer service strategy for your business is to know the characteristics of each customer based on generations. The questions is, WHY? Let’s make it clear. The fact is that in terms of customer service preference, expectations of one generation can differ from those of another. The customer service component of your business is dealing with individuals, and they surely have their own background and behavior that create different expectations during interactions. To have the right customer service strategy, companies need to be aware of differences in defining good customer service with customers from multiple generations.

Understanding Customer Service Preference of Each Generation

Generally, today’s business is comprised of 3 different generations: Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964), Gen X (born between 1965-1981), and Gen Y/Millennial (born between 1982-2004). There is no one customer service strategy fits all scheme when implementing an effective customer service strategy. Companies have responsibility to tailor their strategy based on the needs of their clients from the diverse age group. To create a more effective approach, let’s get deeper understanding about customer service preference of each generation.

• Baby Boomers

If we compare to other generations, providing effective services for the characteristics of Baby Boomers may be very different. It is because Baby Boomers customers will prefer traditional way when it comes to purchasing products, they value face-to-face interactions even though some of them are good at using phones for communication.

If they have any needs or inquiries, Baby Boomers customers prefer visiting the actual store to make purchases or make a phone call than other modern channels. Your customer representatives or agents should value their time, be solution-oriented, and be ready to give them all the information they need with appropriate style of language and communication.

• Gen X

Most Gen X customers has experienced several technological advancements. They start to utilize technology for their daily life. Although they are knowledgeable about technology advancement including social media, they use their accounts primarily for personal use and communication, not for purchase a product or gather information of it. They tend to find their own solutions if they encounter a problem with a product, but if it does not work, they will contact customer service representative directly. They expect that by contacting customer service, the problem will be solved quickly because it is their last option.

If you want to keep them as your loyal customers, please consider providing service through a wide range of service channels and allow them plenty of time to ask questions and gather information.  They expect fast and efficient service from the agents, and would rather receive information and choices in real-time than wait for a customer service representative to call them back.

• Gen Y or Millennial

Millennials always utilize technology for learning, shopping and working. They are proficient in the use of modern technology, and they adapt easily to change and innovation.

Unlike the Baby Boomers and Gen X, Millennials prefer modern communication channels to communicate with the agents of customer service. To serve Millenials customer properly, a company should provide service across modern channels and make sure that the agents are as proficient as them when it comes to technology.

Millennials want their interactions with agents to be short, fast, and tailored specifically to their needs. Therefore, a company should have proactive approaches in their customer service strategy if they want their Millennials customers to be satisfied.

Unlike the previous two generations, Millenials rely on digital platform to connect with businesses and customer service representatives or agents. Therefore, build the brand image through social media is the most effective way to meet the expectation of this generation. To keep this group of customers interested, companies can use interactive and visually appealing solutions.

In providing services to Millennials, you must be very careful. Because the failure to meet their expectations could lead to negative reviews about your brand. Otherwise, if you can provide good service and meet their expectations, you can really count on them to become strong brand advocates. Maybe you should more focus on building the right customer service strategy for this generations, considering the impacts of their presence for your brand image and company reputation.

The customer service preference that is chosen by Millennials create a new customer service strategy, it is usually called omnichannel strategy. The implementation of an omnichannel strategy is imperative for businesses in today’s digital era. You can find out more about omnichannel strategy by reading this article: https://phintraco-tech.com/2020/11/17/importance-omnichannel-strategy-business-digital-era/

Tailoring The Right Customer Service Strategy to Meet Consumer Needs

As a business owner, you need to make sure that you provide the best services to meet your customers’ needs, and interact with several generations of customers based on their own preference. Customer expectations will always be more and more than before. If you want to be always competitive in providing customer service, it will be good if you are considering to implement an omnichannel solutions.

Reach us at marketing@phintraco.com for further information about omnichannel solutions.