millennials

Be Flexible to Fill the Gaps - 10/6/26


The non-profit has the expected challenges.  There are only 3 people in the organization, yet, they have the same responsibilities of a larger company.  They have to do finance, sales, marketing; they deliver their services to the community, and they need to keep a pulse on what’s going on Read more

Is This Good Customer Service? - 9/29/26


A friend of mine reached out to me recently as she waited for the electrical technician to show up at her house to do some minor repairs.  She had never worked with this company before, but they sent a text about the tech who was soon to arrive. The message Read more

Ownership when Fixing Others’ Errors - 9/22/26


We were conducting training with a client recently, and one of the participants, Jackie, is in a role in his organization where he goes out to the customer site to investigate issues, address customer complaints, and fix problems.  While he’s at the site, he often gets an earful from Read more

Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

Use What the Customer Gives You - 8/25/26


Scenario #1: The customer sent an e-mail to the general inbox at the company.  The message noted that the customer needed to get a family member added to their account, but they couldn’t tell from the website how to do so. The next morning an employee opened up the e-mail, Read more

How Better Customer Service is Better for You - 8/18/26


Oftentimes, we have employees in training or workshops who really want to understand what’s in it for them to deliver better customer service.  How does the employee benefit from a better customer experience? Noted below are 5 different aspects of a great experience desired by the customer.  What if... The customer Read more

Manage New Customer Expectations - 8/11/26


The fan had never been to a motorsports event before, but they had been to concerts.  They had been to big conferences.  At those other events, they could park right next to the venue, many of the activities were indoors, and weather was a non-issue.  So, they were not Read more

Complement Empathy with Action - 8/4/26


A man falls into a hole, and he can’t get out.  He starts yelling for help, and a doctor walks by and looks down the hole.  The man in the hole yells to the doctor “Please help me.  I’ve fallen into this hole!”  And the doctor takes out a Read more

Redesign around Millennials (and Others, too!)

Posted on in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Blog 7-3-15Millennials. I’ve been in so many meetings lately where they were the main topic of discussion. Why? Because they’re different. How they communicate, how they socialize with each other, why and how they move toward a brand and what could pull them away is different from other generations.

But couldn’t we say that about most of the customer groups out there? Aren’t first-time customers different than those that have been with you for ten years? Aren’t those that transact business with you purely via the web different than those that will only come into the store to make a purchase or get service?

The uniqueness of Millennials is important to note, but it’s important to note because every customer group (every customer) is unique.

To improve the customer’s experience, conduct this exercise with whomever the key 3-5 customer groups are for your business:

  • Research – Conduct research – surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc. – to identify what is most important to them about their experience. Is it speed, simplicity, self-service options, self-evident steps, text-based options, face-to-face dialogue, quality, or kindness? Identify just a few key attributes of their experience.
  • Journey Map – Use those attributes as guiding principles to redesign your customer’s experience by breaking up the experience into several Macro-process steps; here are six sample steps:
    • They identify a need for and inquire about “stuff”
    • They find stuff
    • They request/order stuff
    • They get a status on stuff delivery
    • They receive stuff
    • They complete/pay for stuff
  • Redesign – During evaluation of each step in this customer continuum, how well does the experience in this step address the guiding principles? For example, when they’re requesting/ordering an item, is it “simple, quick, and self-evident?” If not, then that’s where there’s opportunity for a redesign.

The lesson on the laser focus on Millennials is to look at each customer or customer group as unique. Know what’s important to them so you can design your world around theirs. Research. Journey Map. Redesign

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