The age of grumpiness starts at 35. It’s when we start to complain more. It’s when we start to expect more. It’s when we won’t settle for less.
As a population, we’re becoming older. For many brands, this means their customer profile is changing and, potentially, becoming more demanding and more difficult.
But, to make things more complicated, we’re faced with the big divide between digital immigrants and digital natives.
What’s the distinction? In short, anyone born before 1995 is a digital native. It’s someone who has never experienced a day of their life without the Internet.
For digital immigrants, their brains will never, ever be the same as a digital native. It doesn’t matter how hard they try. In fact, the brains of digital natives are growing differently to digital immigrants, as a direct result of technology.
Digital immigrants like sequential thinking and are more single task orientated. Whereas digital natives are multi-tasking – they’re watching telly and on the Internet, often with multiple devices.
What is the impact of this for customer experience?
To understand the full impact, we need to dig deeper at the differences between all the generations. Professor Moira Clark talked at CX Day 2015 about this, highlighting the key ways that they are different:
- The Silent Generation – Born 1925 – 1944, their driving values are Waste Not, Want Not. They don’t want to waste anything and they’re reticent to express emotion. When it comes to customer experience, this generation is very reserved.
- Baby Boomers – Born 1925 – 1964, they’re shaped by the view that they’re young and image conscious. They like to be in control and, typically, they’re workaholics. They also have 80% of the UK’s wealth
- Generation X – Born 1965 – 1989, their driving force is very different to the Baby Boomers. They want change, fun and self-discovery. As well, they want instant gratification.
- Generation Y – Born from 1990, they’re fundamentally shaped by the digital era. They’re optimistic. They’re confident. They don’t want to work their way to the top; they want to be at the top right now.
For brands, the key takeaway is to understand how customers from different generations want and expect different things. In terms of customer service and the role of technology, these differences are really important. Typically, Baby Boomers are aware of current technology, but not necessarily active users. Generation X is comfortable with using it. Whereas Generation Y, the Digital Natives, live and breath technology.
If you look at the profile of your customers, tailoring your use of technology, based around the generations, is massively important. For people from Generation Y or Generation Z, they want to self-serve. They don’t really want to speak to a person. But, for older generations, they still want to be able to speak to someone at the other end of a phone. It’s about realising there isn’t a one-size fits all approach to engaging your customers. They have different wants, different needs and different feelings towards technology.
Watch Moira and the rest of our expert speakers' presentations from CX Day 2015:
