Widen your view from generations to connected customers

We are beginning to think about engagement in terms of is it social or is it mobile? If our company goes social and mobile, we believe we will connect with the new generations of customers. It must be true since that is all that we hear about.

It takes much more than the latest technology flavor of the year to reach Generation X or Y or Baby Boomers for that matter. It takes a passion to understand and be empathetic. We all long to be known, remembered and served. That said, a number of your customers influence others and are influenced in ways that we don’t quite understand. Customers are connecting and sharing in ways that allow them to learn, discover, share and make decisions that are different than anything we have seen before.

So why wouldn’t being on Facebook and Twitter along with having a mobile application clinch your future relevance for your mission? The answer lies in seeing the customer journey as an ecosystem not a specific isolated channel. We need, and our customers want, a holistic experience where all the pieces play nice together. What good does it do to have a bad eCommerce experience because my credit card was charged twice to be helped by a pleasant call center representative? One bad experience and then a good one but I don’t hear from you except when you want me to buy again. Really?

What is different now is that the whole generational range (Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, etc.) of customers are connected. In our previous example, the frustrated customer posted a comment on Facebook when their credit card got charged twice. That is what their friends saw and remembered. All the devices they are on are more than just devices, they are becoming an extension of who they are. While this is data from 2011, 48% of 18 to 34 year olds checked Facebook when they got up and 28% did so before they got out of bed.

What is important is that the ecosystem is held together by the connected customer who needs it to be consistent. While there generational differences the commonality is the constant connectivity across multiple devices. This is bigger than a demographic as so many are embracing a digital lifestyle. This transcends age, income, ethnicity, and education. The connected customer does not surf the web like other customers. They live in a totally social world (online) and use all of their devices as a window to how they live. They do not learn like their non-digital counterparts. They fully embrace many communities which cut across demographics.

The generation of connected customers is vastly different than any segment you have addressed in the past. What you know about “direct response” will not help you here. “Open rates” may mean nothing any longer. What you think the connected customer may want and what they really value are probably worlds apart. They are always on and to reach them takes a different approach all together.

We tend to think about size of a market differently than think about connected customers that cut across traditional markets. We tend to think about how to reach Baby Boomers or how to reach Gen Y’s or how to reach Millennials. What does it mean when you layer in how to engage connected customers who cut across all those generations? The unconnected customer segment (across all generations) is shrinking and the connected customer is rapidly growing.

Since markets are shifting, think about your strategies. Are they being refreshed fast enough? Are you investing in small, fast tests to engage in new ways with the connected customer? On a daily basis, company leaders need to place more emphasis on the connected customer. This includes leading the charge to learn new skills, structure staff differently, and invest more in marketing technology. Which side of the changing demographics do you want to on? The shrinking or the growing?