The next part in Shep Hyken’s Achieving Customer Amazement 2021 document covers Communication Preferences, as ranked by the four different generations Hyken surveyed: Gen-Z, Millennials, Gen-X, and Boomers. As with the previous sections in his report, there are several noteworthy differences—but also plenty of common ground—when it comes to each age-group’s preferred communication channels. Now, this survey specifically queried people with this question: “In general, what is your preferred method of communication when contacting a company for customer service?” Respondents were able to select multiple channels, if they were comfortable with more than one.
So, the most popular communication method overall is the Telephone, although it should come as no surprise that younger people don’t prefer it as strongly. Over 80% of Gen-Xers and Boomers selected the phone as one of their preferred methods of communication, while around 55% of Gen-Zers and Millennials felt the same way. While the difference in age is stark, it’s worth noting that averaged all together, a super-majority of respondents prefers this channel. The ability to speak to someone directly is still quite valuable, especially given its convenience.
Similarly, email is quite popular with all age groups, with the three younger generations coming in between 56% and 65%. It may surprise you to learn that the outlying Boomers actually preferred email the strongest as 82%, which means that people over the age of 57 seem to equally comfortable with either phone calls or emails. The twenty-percentage point difference compared to the other generations is remarkable—perhaps it’s related to the lost art of letter-writing that was more popular in decades past?
Next, both online chat and in-person communication all came in with similar numbers for each generation, between 43% and 54%, with relatively small differences. Perhaps the lower rankings for these surprises you. The reason for both, we believe, is a matter of inconvenience. It can be a slow process to have a conversation with someone in a chat window, made all the most frustrating by the fact that you have to stay engaged with the employee or they’ll disconnect with you. As for in-person support, this channel is perhaps the least convenient as it requires customers to physically travel to your business for their customer service. All the others can be done from home.
In any case, these four channels—telephone, email, online chat, and in-person—round out the most preferred, at least when it comes to reaching the broadest age range possible, but there are a few others that didn’t perform as well: texting, brand apps, and social media.
With the exception of Gen-Zers, who preferred texting at over 50% (no surprise there), the older generations weren’t as keen: less than a third of Millennials or Gen-Xers chose texting, and less than a quarter of Boomers did. Perhaps there’s a discomfort in chatting with a touchscreen keyboard, especially when it’s for customer service and a lot has to be written out.
Across all generations, brand apps are similarly abysmal. In fact, the generation this channel appealed to most was Millennials, but even then, only 27% selected this option. Just over 15% of Gen-Xers and Gen-Zers selected this, followed by a distant 5% for Boomers. Brand apps are almost entirely geared towards online shopping, so maybe this in itself is a put-off for customers seeking support and not more sales pitches. Navigating them for anything more than product searches can be annoying.
Lastly, social media was favored least of all for contacting a company, at around 25% for Gen-Zers and Millennials, and in single-digit percentage points for Gen-Xers and Boomers. This makes a lot of sense, really: social media teams are usually staffed with people whose job it is to spread brand awareness, not support customers. Perhaps you’ve heard of a success story or two about people who had bad experiences and complained about it online (especially regarding airlines), but those situations are very public and involve a company trying to save face. No one wants to start their customer service journey on Twitter, Facebook, etc. That’s where it ends. When customers talk about your business in these forums, you want it to start and stay positive.
As always, you have to consider your own business to decide how to best implement these findings into your own practices. Fundamentally, each channel requires the involvement of employees who are well trained and passionate about offering the best customer experience (CX) possible. (That’s even true in the brand apps! The software engineers should care about usability and convenience when designing those apps.) If nothing else, we should always remember this fact.
We all hope that our products or services are so stellar that they never need post-transaction support, but that’s not a realistic expectation. Mistakes occur. Unforeseen circumstances crop up. Buyer’s remorse happens. But when it does, business owners should ensure their customer service is there to help in the best way possible—and as conveniently as possible. In the end, it’s always about CX.
Our clients know this well because they are among the nation’s most CX-focused businesses out there, passionate about their products, services, and reputation for quality. They know they can’t maintain or improve these core essentials without the kind of feedback mystery shopping consistently delivers. If your business is like-minded about customer service, we would be honored for you to consider working with us. Call us at 406–586–3036, or email us today to find out more!
