Age plays a large factor in influencing customer expectations for a great experience. The level of employee helpfulness, friendliness, empathy, knowledgeability, as well as the ease of shipping/delivery and returns all matter to each age group, but there are certainly stark differences on how much each of these matters to them.
As we continue our examination of Shep Hyken’s latest Achieving Customer Amazement report, let’s first define the generations he used when gathering these preferences. Boomers he surveyed are 57–65 years old (born up to 1964), Gen X is 45–56 (b. 1965–1980), Millennials are 26–44 (b. 1981–1995), and Gen Z is 18–25 (b. after 1996).
In Hyken’s survey, he asked participants to select their top three most important factors for why they would repeatedly shop with the same business. As he notes in the ACA 2021 document, “Older generations are influenced if the employees are helpful and knowledgeable, while younger generations are influenced more by a friendly customer service experience and easy returns.”
All groups seem to prioritize helpfulness and friendliness to a high level, but there are stark differences between how different generations value knowledgeability. In fact, the graph cleanly descends from highly important to somewhat along with youth. Over 60% of Boomers rated knowledge as being crucial, whereas less than 40% felt the same way among Gen-Z. And that declining priority makes sense given the comfort level each age-group has with using the Internet for product research. So many Gen-Zers and Millennials will make purchase decisions purely on what others report online, whereas Gen-Xers and Boomers will seek out expertise face-to-face or some other means.
(It’s worth noting that Boomers and Gen-Xers usually prioritize customer experiences similarly, just as Millennials and Gen-Zers do with their priorities, but there is one particular facet that Boomers and Gen-Xers are on the opposite ends of the spectrum: empathy. Gen-X actually values empathy more than every other age group, younger ones included, and Boomers value it the least. There’s probably a deep psychological disconnect based on cultural trends of the time periods, but such analysis is beyond our scope.)
Understanding your business’s demographics is key to crafting the most personalized and focused customer experience possible. A trendy café is going to skew younger than a formal dining restaurant, obviously. But the truth is that as different as each generation can be on what they value most, all of these components are still valuable. No age group ranked any of them a zero.
Matters of company policy, like hassle-free shipping/delivery and easy returns are completely in the hands of the business owners. These are obviously important to the customer experience, but employees have no real say in how all that works.
However, the other components are entirely on the employees and how they are trained: helpfulness, knowledgeability, friendliness, and empathy. These four are matters of customer service, and they weigh a lot more than anything else when you draw the bottom line. This is true regardless of generation.
Customer service must be regularly measured to be improved. Without regular monitoring, you cannot effectively train your staff to get better. You cannot really have staff development without relevant focus. Think of it from the perspective of a math tutor who doesn’t bother to discover what a student is struggling with: if the student is already good at algebra but not geometry, why would the tutor spend equal amounts of time teaching both? Instead, the tutor would review the students’ grades and focus on helping the student improve where he needs it most.
Now think about your own business. Are you mystery shopping yet? If not, then you’re flying just as blind as the tutor who doesn’t know what math to focus on. If you want to make your customer-service training top notch, to really focus on improving your employees’ helpfulness, knowledgeability, friendliness, and empathy, then you need to actionable feedback. Then, you’ll be able to delight and make loyal patrons of all your customers, regardless of their age group.
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