Providing excellent customer service and creating a positive customer experience is a critical factor in running a successful contact center of any kind. However, every customer demographic requires a different type of care and attention to achieve this end. This can make serving all of your consumers and creating a consistently good experience for all of your customers difficult.

So, how can you solve the problem of addressing the needs of all of your consumers without creating astronomical labor costs or slowing down your daily operations to the point of negatively impacting productivity and efficiency? Read on to learn more about how the right tools, techniques, and technology can help you do exactly that!

Understanding Customer Demographic – Who are You Serving?

Before you can begin to serve the various customer demographics that exist in your industry, you first have to understand who they are and what they are looking for. While it would be impossible to break down every demographic you will possibly encounter while serving customers at a call center, there are some very important consumer groups that should never be overlooked.

In most industries, consumer demographics are separated by age. However, the actual age of a consumer isn’t always what matters when it comes to serving them properly. It’s important to note that there are other factors – which we will address here for each group – that make them unique. Sometimes, you may find yourself serving a very young consumer the same way you might serve their grandparents, simply because they have the same preferences. It’s all about understanding your customer on an individual basis as well as from the perspective of their membership of an age group or other demographic.

Here are a few of the demographics you are likely to encounter when serving consumers in your contact center, as well as what makes each of them unique:

Baby Boomer Customers

While many businesses have begun to discount the importance of baby boomer consumers, they are still the most formidable slice of the marketplace in many areas. This generation is aging into retirement now, becoming grandparents and entering the golden years of life. However, their standards haven’t slipped; they expect excellent service with traditional values as the basis of that service.

It’s important to remember that the Baby Boomer consumer has seen more change to technology, social norms, and the world of business than any other demographic you will encounter. They have seen the shift from strict, person-to-person interaction to the automated world of today, so it is important to keep in mind that their expectations and preferences are going to be different than their younger peers.

Cater to your Baby Boomer customers by forging real relationships, using their names, offering live agent interaction whenever possible, and providing follow-up service with personalized thank-yous. These small gestures go a long way toward pleasing these consumers.

Millennial Customers

This is perhaps the most famous and most talked-about group of consumers of any mentioned here, and also perhaps the most misunderstood. Businesses and the media love to talk about how millennials are “killing” various industries and products, but what is really happening is that these consumers have demanding lives and high standards, which often result in products and even entire companies failing when they fail to meet these standards.

This is also perhaps the most important customer demographic for contact centers, since it is well known that millennial consumers are not traditionally huge fans of these types of businesses. Addressing their needs is important since they make up over 40% of the current market and hold a large share of the buying and financial decision-making power in the current economy.

So, how do you balance the needs of a picky group of consumers who are also one of your most crucial? The answer is understanding their motivation. Millennials want convenience. They are the busiest of any of your consumer groups, in the primes of their lives at this point. From college to climbing the career ladder to raising growing families, they don’t have time to wait around or make call after call if their problems aren’t solved the first time around. Meet their needs promptly and on the first call, and they’ll become satisfied, repeat customers.

Generation Z Customers

Generation Z may be the newest on the scene, but they are by no means powerless in the marketplace. These up-and-comers are calling a lot of the shots when it comes to business and marketing trends, because their preferences are changing the approaches businesses take to everything from advertisements to payment acceptance.

Generation Z consumers differ from both of the previous groups, in that they combine a love of instant gratification and today’s best technology – living in the moment – and treasuring earthly possessions. Striking this balance can be tricky, which makes serving these customers even trickier. Generation Z consumers want self-service and online or mobile payment options, prefer chat over verbal phone conversations and are just as likely to go to a store or other business location to get things done as they are to solve their problems online.

Don’t underestimate these consumers; cater to their needs by keeping your options plentiful and your service level high. These customers expect the very best and are willing to take the extra steps to ensure that they receive what they want. - give it to them every time!

When you’re ready to expand your customer service to meet the needs of every customer demographic, contact the experts at ChaseData. We have the tools you need to outfit your operation for maximum efficiency in meeting consumer needs and guaranteeing the best possible customer experience, time after time. No matter who is on the other end of the line, give them the best outcome available – and give your business a boost in the process. Give us a call today to learn more about the solutions we offer to help make meeting more consumer needs a reality for your contact center location!