Millennials have become the largest single population group within the workforce. That provides them with substantial buying power that requires attention from the business community when it comes to addressing their needs as customers. This is a generation of digital natives and have a different set of expectations and behavior patterns from preceding generations that grew up with traditional methods of customer engagement and service. They are also not shy about wanting support on their terms – how and when they want it – and are quick to find competitive providers if they don’t receive it.
Self-Service is a Must
This is a generation that has grown up with access to information and communications services at their fingertips at all times, which is reflected in their desire for customer support to follow the same patterns. This is a generation that prefers to try to help themselves before reaching out for assistance. They are much more likely to seek out FAQ pages and support documents on company websites before calling customer service. In fact, more than two-thirds of Millennials say they feel good about companies with effective self-service options. In addition, half of Millennials feel self-service is an inherent part of the brand relationship and the see it as a positive attribute of companies with which they do business.
Artificial Intelligence Interactions
While Millennials, in general, may prefer digital channels to voice, they do recognize IVR systems driven by speech recognition and Natural Language Processing, and chatbots as a path to self-service. With AI-driven chatbots and IVR systems, businesses enable customers to quickly find answer to questions and solve many problems without having to engage a live agent, resulting in faster resolution and a greater sense of accomplishment, creating a better brand perception. In fact, nearly three-quarters of Millennnials say they engage in AI-based interactions for customer service at least once a week, and almost half do it daily. Furthermore, automation and connected devices represent an opportunity for customer service organizations to take their capabilities to yet another level: 62% of Millennials would like to be able to interact with customer service through their intelligent assistants, like Alexa or Google Home.
Text Message
More than 22 billion text messages are sent each day globally – that’s more than 15 million per minute, not counting app-to-app messaging like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. In addition, 90% of consumers would like to be able to engage businesses via text message. When you then factor in Millennials’ preference for digital channels, there’s a real opportunity to deliver great experiences using text- and chat-enabled customer service. Messaging has the benefit of engaging customers in near-real time and allows customers to engage easily in situations where voice may be an inconvenience. Chat-enabled websites and apps, along with SMS, give Millennials more digital options for solving issues conveniently. Importantly, these interactions can easily be added to customer records for future reference and data collected can be used to create even more effective self service capabilities.
Text2IVR
Being able to engage across multiple channels is key to working with Millennials. Aspect has developed a Text2IVR solution that combines IVR-based self-service with text messaging to make many interactions easier for customers. Text2IVR recognizes when customers are calling from cellphone and offers the options to provide key information via text message. That can be incredibly helpful when trying to provide data that may be hard for speech recognition systems to accurately interpret, like names, addresses, tracking IDs, and more, to improve accuracy of data and ensure accuracy of shipping, billing, and other items. Importantly, the data exchange via secure SMS takes place without dropping the IVR call, allowing the system to read back submitted information for verification and continue the interaction.
While Millennials may be driving some of the new customer service strategies, the ability to provide choice and more efficient engagement across channels is a benefit to all customers. They not only allow customers to engage using their preferred channels, but also enable businesses to react in quickly and effectively to ensure a positive customer service experience.
