The last twenty years have seen a major shift in the way consumers engage with companies. Thanks to the growth of technology—and particularly social media—consumer power is at an all-time high and is radically altering the customer-business relationship. The pressure on companies to improve how they interact with their customers is only going to intensify, especially with the latest generation of consumers that is shaking up the old notions of customer engagement. Brands get ready, it’s time to engage with Generation D.
To put Gen D in perspective, here’s a quick overview of how they are different from previous generations. Generation C, or Millennials, were first to adopt social media, regarding it as a fun way to communicate with an ever expanding network of “friends.” As social media matured, the next generation of consumers, Gen D, recognized its potential to shape interactions with companies. They have evolved from Gen C, using social media not just as a tool for friendly communication, but one that can be leveraged to get what they want. Gen D has discovered that it works—that businesses will indeed respond to posts and tweets, and they have no compunction about letting the world know how they feel about their experiences. This is putting companies under serious pressure as they struggle to meet these consumers’ high expectations, and brands that don’t get it right can very well face a customerpocalypse.
The “D” stands for three distinct characteristics: Discover, Devour and Demonise. Gen D embraces the notion of discovery—that is, discovering a brand all on their own—and firmly rejects the idea of being “sold to.” Simply put, brands need to figure out a way to market themselves to Gen D without making it obvious that that’s what they’re doing. In other words, they need to inspire and prompt Generation D customers to ‘discover’ the brand and its products by themselves. The standard sales pattern certainly won’t work.
Gen D is also a generation of extremes. Their emotions can range from intense happiness when they discover a brand that they like, to real anger if they have a bad experience with a brand. This is where the devour and demonise traits come into play. We’ve seen with Gen C that if they don’t like something a brand has done, then they’re more than happy to let the social media world know about this and will no longer do business with said brand. This isn’t enough for Gen D however; they may take a negative experience personally, as some kind of affront, and will set out to destroy the brand that made them feel like this. Basically, a brand can be “devoured” as wonderful and worthy of their business or it is viewed as deceitful, uncool and only fit to be demonised.
When it comes to loyalty, Gen D just isn’t into it. Many brands are already finding it a struggle to engage with Gen C and develop a loyal customer base. However, they will have to stretch themselves even further with Gen D. If a brand wants to get Gen D on board then trust, transparency and complete openness are absolutely critical factors. A Gen D consumer doesn’t view loyalty in the typical way; they think the company should be loyal to them, not the other way around.
While this behaviour started with Gen D, it is no longer exclusive to them. The rest of us have taken notice. Across generations, we now see the mind-set that companies should address our specific needs and interests and woe betide those that fail to do so. We have all learned to use social tools to voice our opinions without reservation. So, Gen D may have started the 3-D trend to discover, devour and demonize, but we are all becoming equally adept at engaging in this behaviour.
This means that brands are going to need to dramatically rethink their approach to customer engagement to meet the far more demanding expectations of consumers in general. The brands who act now will stand themselves in good stead for the future since, as much as we might not like to admit it, this brave new world of customer engagement isn’t going anywhere. If a brand really wants to survive the customerpocalypse, a dramatic transformation, which puts the customer at the heart of the business, is essential.
By Alan Trefler, CEO and founder at Pegasystems.
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