Do your marketing and communication tactics change when you work with a client of a different generation? If not, you may want to reconsider how you approach your generational clients as more research shows Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y communicate differently.

By Maureen Alley

Do your marketing and communication tactics change when you work with a client of a different generation? If not, you may want to reconsider how you approach your generational clients as more research shows Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y communicate differently.

To take a closer look at 30-year-old consumers, we can review the Student Mindset report published by Beloit College, Beloit, Wis. every fall semester. It gives its instructors a better idea about their new freshmen class. For example, let’s look at the 2002 class (published in 2002):

• There has only been one pope. They can only remember one other president.
• They cannot fathom what it was like not having a remote control.
• Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
• They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era, and did not know he had ever been shot.

This generation is also the same group that prefers to text vs. call, search your website to learn more about your offerings, and will ask for feedback using social media. You cannot interact with this group of consumers the same way as your Baby Boomer customers. In fact, one in three social media users contact a brand on social media vs. a phone call according to NM Incite’s 2012 Social Care Survey.

You may be hesitant to jump into the social media pool but if your target customer is shifting from one generation to the younger generation it will become a requirement. Generation Y expects you to be on Twitter and Facebook, and they want you to be listening to them in those spaces. Fifty-nine percent of 18-24 year olds have used social media for customer service, and they expect a quick response. Eighty-three percent of Twitter users and 71 percent of Facebook users expect a response from a brand within the same day of posting, says the Social Care Survey.

Not hearing what your younger customers have to say about you on those sites can risk the loss of a customer.

How are you using social media for customer service?