How-to-Win-Over-Millennials

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How to Win Over Millennials WWW.PEGA.COM
2
Micah Solomon is a best-selling author and an authority on customer
service and customer experience. He is a frequent contributor to
Forbes.com and Inc.com. Follow him at @micahsolomon.
Micah Solomon
Author

WWW.PEGA.COMHow to Win Over Millennials
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CONTENTS
MEET THE MILLENNIALS 4
PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE THE 5
MILLENNIALS ARE
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 6
THE (UNAUTHORIZED) JETSONS GUIDE 13
TO MODERN CUSTOMER SERVICE
MAKE IT EASY FOR CUSTOMERS TO GIVE 15
YOU THEIR MONEY
BE EVERYWHERE YOUR CUSTOMER IS 16
BUILD SOMETHING GENUINE 18
YOUR CUSTOMER’S THE STAR 19
SHARE THE EXPERIENCE 21

4
MEET THE
MILLENIALS
Within the next few years, millennial customers (born between 1980 and 2000) will bring
the greatest spending power of any generation to date. There are even more of them
than Baby Boomers.
These are customers shaped by a lifetime immersion in online commerce, search
engines and on-the-go connectivity. Their phones have always been smart. The Internet
has always been on. They’ve likely never waited in line at the bank, mailed a letter or had
their musical choices limited to the radio. They can align their shopping with their values,
with options to buy humane, green, fair trade, organic and employee-owned.
Millennials are important not just by their sheer numbers and direct economic impact,
but because their preferences and behaviors affect the behavior of older generations. A
25-year-old’s expectations today will be mirrored in her parents’ demands soon.
THE OPPORTUNITYAND THE CHALLENGE
You need to streamline the customer experience via technology, while also staying
genuine and human. Keeping up with your rapidly evolving customers requires
attention, creativity and hard work.

5
PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE
THE MILLENIALS ARE
The millennial generation is already more numerous than any other generation and will
only grow larger as the populations of older generations dwindle. They’ll soon become
the most important consumers, both in number of interactions and dollars spent.
It’s estimated they’ll spend $200 billion annually by 2017 and $10 trillion over their
lifetimes as consumers.

6
GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
05.
They value
values.
01.
They expect
technology to
work. Quickly
and easily.
02.
They’re social —
online and off.
03.
They want to
collaborate.
04.
They’re all about
adventure.

Millennials feel that a new brand, service or
product is only started by the company; it’s
finished by the customers. Companies that
figure out ways to engage in this co-creation
relationship will have an edge.
Alex Castellarnau, Team Design
Dropbox
“
”

8
THEY EXPECT TECHNOLOGY
TO WORK. QUICKLY & EASILY.
Because they’ve grown up digital, millennials embrace
technology. Faster internet speeds, increased access to
the web, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets,
intuitive search functions and always-on GPS influence
customer demands.
Millennials in particular place a premium on speed and
convenience. They’re twice as likely as other customers
to buy their groceries at convenience stores (in spite
of the wild markups), and they disproportionately
patronize places like Panera, Chipotle and Pei Wei, as
well as stores with pre-packaged to-go food options
— all of which dispense with the waiting-around-for-
waitstaff routine.i
The technology closest to the millennial heart is mobile.
According to Pew, more than four out of five sleep next
to their cell phones. They own more cell phones, use
their cell phones more, text more and text while driving
(yikes) more than other generations. And 41% have no
landline.
01.

9
THEY’RE SOCIAL — ONLINE
AND OFF
Millennials are sociable, particularly where online and
offline activities overlap. They’re more likely than other
generations to shop, dine and travel with groups and
share stories about it on Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr,
Vine, YouTube, Instagram, Yelp, TripAdvisor and Amazon.
They want to show off where they are, where they’ve
been and where they’re headed — online alerts that
reflect behavior in the physical world.
More than two-thirds of millennials, according to
marketer Jeff Fromm’s research, “don’t make a major
decision until they have discussed it with a few people
they trust,” and 70% of millennials are “more excited
about a decision they’ve made when their friends agree
with them, compared to 48% of non-millennials.”
And millennials aren’t just social with their friends.
Incredibly, 85% of teens name one of their parents
as their best friend and more than one-third say they
influence what products their parents buy, what shops
and restaurants they visit and what trips they take.
02.

10
THEY WANT TO
COLLABORATE
Millennials are a collaborative generation, in part because of their parenting and
education. They want to collaborate with businesses and brands, as long as they
believe they have a say. According to Alex Castellarnau at Dropbox, “Millennials feel
that a new brand, service or product is only started by the company; it’s finished by the
customers. Companies that figure out ways to engage in this co-creation relationship
will have an edge.”
10
03.

11
THEY’RE ALL ABOUT
ADVENTURE
Millennial customers crave discovery. Here are a few
examples:
• When shopping, they prefer an “experiential lifestyle
environment” (where shopping is more than a
transaction and pleasure isn’t limited to the goods
they buy).i
• Far more millennials than non-millennials report a
desire to visit every continent and travel abroad as
much as possible.ii
• More than twice as many millennials as those in
other age brackets say they are willing “to encounter
danger in pursuit of excitement.”iii
This may sound
irrelevant, but consider the idea of “danger” to
include traveling across the city for artisanal
cupcakes, knowing the bakery famously sells out each
day before 10 a.m., or shopping, on a lark, at a popup
store with no history and only word of mouth buzz.
• When millennials dine out, they search for the
exotic, adventurous or memorable. This has helped
transform cuisine searches into an adventure — and
food-truck-following into its own culture.iv
04.
i Millennial Passions
ii Traveling With Millennials (Boston Consulting Group, 2013)
iii American Millennials: Deciphering the Enigma Generation (Barkley in collaboration with Service Management Group And Boston Consulting Group, 2011)
iv Millennial Passions: Food, Fashion, and Friends (Boston Consulting Group, 2010)

12
THEY VALUE VALUES
Millennials are more likely than previous generations to care about a company’s
values: its social responsibility, sustainability and ethics in treating employees and
suppliers, according to research by Boston Consulting Group and Barkley. More than
50% make an effort to buy products from companies that support causes they care
about, according to research from Barkley, an independent advertising agency.
To win the hearts of today’s consumers, a business needs to stand for something and
mean it. Customers are always on the lookout for corporate hypocrisy. One test is
whether an organization engages in “greenwashing,” the practice of solely paying lip
service to environmental issues. It’s bad enough on its own, but customers feel it also
indicates hypocrisy among other ethical issues.
With social media ubiquitous and “inside information” a Google search away, an
organization can’t hide its hypocrisy for long. When Lululemon showed reluctance to
take responsibility for a see-through yoga-pants debacle, it turned off customers to
the tune of a 50% drop in share price. On the other hand, Starbucks walks the talk
of its corporate philosophy, spending more on ethically sourced coffee beans and
providing health insurance to every worker, even the part-timers.
05.

13
THE (UNAUTHORIZED)
JETSONS GUIDE TO
MODERN CUSTOMER
SERVICE
Building the right experience for today’s customers requires you to think about an
uncomfortable subject: where employees are helpful, and where they just get in the
way. Today’s younger customers know that technology can reduce the need for human
gatekeepers. Think of all the transactions routinely conducted online, from buying plane
tickets to signing up for classes to scheduling doctor’s appointments.
13

14
The Jetsons Test
14
In the Jetsons, much of
the customer service is
provided by machines.
And much of this machine-
based service is actually
self-service. The service
provided by humans adds
what people want out of
human interaction: warmth
and a little drama. Consider
the southern-accented
receptionist who warmly
greets George Jetson at
work.
This is a solid model for
dividing your operations.
If someone can do the job
more efficiently or effectively
than a machine, then a
human should be doing it
(e.g., cardiac surgery and
watercolor painting). That
also hold true if a person
can do the job more
warmly than a machine.
The exceptions are when
warmth comes at the
expense of efficiency,
or vice versa. Then, it’s a
judgment call. One solution
involves a Jetsonian
compromise: personalizing
the technology you use to
deliver service.
Consider Rosie the
Robot, the animatronic
housekeeper with a New
Yawk accent and an
attitude to match; she’s not
a bad model to follow when
designing your customer-
facing technology.
So, how can you determine
which service functions
you should offload to
technology and which ones
you should keep with your
employees? The Jetsons
Test, based on the 1962
television series set 100
years in the future.

15
MAKE IT EASY
FOR CUSTOMERS
TO GIVE YOU
THEIR MONEY
Retail faces a particular problem of using an old model to serve new
customers. When a customer’s trying to hand over her money, she
shouldn’t be forced to endure a line for the privilege of doing so! It’s time
to “escape being tied down to the traditional model of a ‘cash route,’
where you go to a place to do the transaction,” as retail expert and
Accumula Technologies CEO Evan Brubaker puts it.
This is the model Apple uses, keeping the mechanics of the transaction
— receipts, register, cash drawer — out of view, so the focus is on the
customer.
Take Camelion Design, a small, seasonally busy home design and
accessories retailer in Seattle. For 15 years, Camelion used a single
cash register, which meant during the busy holiday season there
could be 10 or 15 customers stewing in line. Accumula Technologies
installed a POS system designed by Lightspeed that runs on three
Apple devices. Now any employee anywhere in the store can ring
up customers on the spot, handling multiple transactions at once
— without ever being taken off the floor.
15

16
BE EVERYWHERE
YOUR CUSTOMER IS
Millennials have come of age lacking the sense of limitations in commerce that their
elders have long accepted. They want to shop online and pick up in your store.
They want to receive text coupons while they’re shopping in the area. They want
you to find and ship items right to their home that aren’t currently available.
They want you to recognize what kind of shopper they are and reward them
for it. And they will Yelp your business a new one if you can’t meet these demands. In
short, they’re omnichannel. And you need to be too.
Your inventory systems and databases need to be connected. Your return procedures
and order histories need to be synchronized. Companies like Micros, recently acquired
by Oracle, specialize in technology that allows this coordination. So, say a customer
returns a dress either through the mail or at the store, the general ledger is adjusted,
order history is appended and inventory is updated in real-time.
New technology also means you can expand your store’s inventory without taking up
valuable real estate. Small retailers can use systems like the Lightspeed solution by
Accumula, while larger retailers can use a more elaborate system like Micros, allowing
customers to peruse items that aren’t found on the showroom floor.
When your customer service experience becomes truly seamless and centered on
the customer, you’ve achieved omnichannel. By lowering the barrier to reaching your
company through any possible channel, you’ll hear from the customer more — and
more often with an open pocketbook.
16

17017
...this generation craves
personal experiences.
Jennifer Fox, President
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
“
”

18
BUILD SOMETHING GENUINE
Today’s customers have an advanced ability to spot
corporate hogwash. While no customers are fond of
artifice, millennials in particular are on a quest for the
genuine — and to win them over, your business needs to
be perceived as authentic.
Some of what creates authenticity is intrinsic to your
brand For example, if you’re the first or a storied brand
in a particular marketplace like Levi’s or Sam Adams. Or,
maybe you have a founder who personifies authenticity,
like climber Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia. But
some genuine elements can be consciously created as
part of the overall customer experience through things
like language.
In general, customers today favor a straightforward,
down-to-earth, even slangy style of communication in their
business interactions.
They are “disillusioned by anything canned and artificial,”
as business and marketing expert Andrew Jensen puts it.
Excessive formality is hazardous to your business because
it clashes with the personal style of your customers,
millennials in particular, and makes your brand appear out
of touch or even condescending.
A good way to enforce reasonable language standards
is the Danny Meyer Method, after the great New York
restaurateur. The Meyer Method asks employees to nix
certain phrases (“it’s our policy,” “to be honest with you,”
or Danny’s pet peeve: “Are we still working on the lamb?”),
but doesn’t prescribe specific replacements. This provides
employees with boundaries but empowers them to use
creativity within those parameters.

19
We talked about offloading service tasks that can be done better electronically.
And once you’ve done this, it’s tempting to pocket the savings and call it a day. But
improving automated customer service is no excuse to offer lousy human-powered
service.
SOME SHINING EXAMPLES
JD Power recently confirmed the importance of personal service in a study of the
hospitality industry, which found that customers who interact more often with service
staff, and with a broader cross-section of that staff, reported greater satisfaction.
Those with the highest satisfaction dealt with at least four employees across the hotel;
those with the least only interacted with an employee at check-in.
Jiffy Lube, the oil change and automotive services chain, rolled out an intricate
nationwide database of customer vehicle history and manufacturer-prescribed service
requirements. This information is just a click away for their employees, freeing them
from onerous paperwork so they can assist customers easily and knowledgeably.
Apple invested in training its employees to help customers on the floor and at the
Genius Bar, where the diagnostic specialists are called “Geniuses.” (Notice how this
playful title avoids describing a transactional role and focuses on ability instead.)
Companies like these don’t pocket their savings from streamlining service. They invest
them in the human element. Your business needs to be more than a throughway for
getting customers from point A to point B. You need to create an experience they’ll
enjoy along the way.
YOUR CUSTOMER’S THE STAR
19

20
SHARE THE
EXPERIENCE
20
For all of their tech savvy, millennials are hardly a bunch
of cold, analytical Spocks. Marketing consultant Andrew
Jensen says, “It’s a dangerous mistake to think of the
millennial generation as hard-edged technocrats. On the
contrary, this generation craves personal experiences.”
Jennifer Fox, president of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts,
agrees. Younger customers coming into the marketplace
hope “[we] will deliver an emotional narrative that
resonates with them.”

2121
EXPAND THE
CIRCLE
Let’s take travel, for
example. No matter who
you actually go away with,
friends and loved ones are
always along for the ride
as you document your
adventures through social
media. Boston Consulting
Group explains that “for
a four-day leisure trip,
the average consumer
spends 42 hours online
researching, planning
and making reservations,
and then sharing their
experiences while they
travel or when they get
back home.”
HOW SHARING AFFECTS
BUYING
This socialization of
consumption goes beyond
those who are traditionally
considered friends. Even
ostensible strangers
— online followers and
brands’ online reviewers
— are often trusted by
younger customers more
than even well-established
brands, according to
Joeri Van den Bergh and
Mattias Behrer. Customers
look for authority online
from people with similar
experiences, perspectives
and backgrounds. And
these acquaintances, both
physical and virtual, have
a real effect on what’s
purchased, and how it’s
experienced.
FIND YOUR CUSTOMER
PIONEERS
Another way sharing
affects purchase power is
when customers become
“discoverers” in the eyes
of friends, loved ones and
acquaintances. A study
by The Futures Company
shows that people take
pride in discovering
products and services
and being recognized by
their peers for being “first.”
The customer gets social
currency — and your
business gets credibility.
Any effort and creativity you
invest to help customers
build these relationships
will simultaneously help you
build relationships.
This extends to other
arenas, too. In retail,
girlfriends share selfies
from the dressing room
to get opinions on fit and
style. In dining, customers
share course-by-course
photos of their meals in
real time. In entertainment,
fans stream concerts
from the crowd. Even in
healthcare, pro athletes
tweet updates about their
injuries from the ER.

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