How to Attract and Retain Millennial Customers Through 2030
In a nutshell 🥥 Millennial customers expect convenient, personalized, and digitally enabled banking experiences. Banks and credit unions can attract and retain them by offering higher-quality service, self-serve digital interactions, real-time appointment scheduling, personalized support, and direct feedback opportunities that reduce friction and strengthen loyalty. As the first generation to be raised with the absolute ease of technology – the norm of face-to-face interactions for banks and credit unions has shifted. Because of this, banks and credit unions face a difficult challenge; how do you attract and retain millennial customers who want to minimize interaction, and crave an enhanced digital experience. For those up to meeting this challenge – it could signify their greatest opportunity for growth. Over the next 10 years, 75% of customers seeking wealth management and personal financial services will be millennials. This is a concerning statistic for many finserv organizations since the millennial customer shows a number of differences in the way they prefer to interact with organizations compared to older generations. We will discuss the differences in how to communicate with a millennial customer and how an appointment management solution can help attract the up and coming generation and reduce churn. How can Coconut Software upgrade your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download the Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – The Challenges for Credit Unions and Banks 1. Millennials Have Higher Customer Service Expectations Millennials, a tech-savvy generation, have grown up in the midst of the digital transformation and are used to the benefits that come with it. The digital experience has enabled many industries to increase the quality of the services they provide in terms of customer experience, and millennials have become accustomed to premium treatment. Financial Services is one of the oldest industries in the world, and also one of the last to begin the digital transformation, leaving many traditional banks still unprepared for younger generations’ digital expectations. This is causing the millennial customer to seek out businesses that provide them with convenient digital service that they desire. 2. Millennials Prefer to Interact With Brands Digitally Millennials and Gen Z are digital-centric generations, meaning they rely strongly on technology in their daily lives, specifically their smartphones, and expect seamless digital banking access. In fact, 67% of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z primarily use mobile banking apps. Millennials expect immediate, online access to their finserv provider, whereas older generations were very comfortable picking up the phone or waiting for their service provider to get back to them. These younger customers, more than other generations, are asking themselves, “if I can schedule a massage, order groceries and buy flights online, why can’t I book an appointment with my bank?” And because they often have fewer entrenched financial relationships, they’re more willing to switch when that access falls short. 3. Millennials Won’t Stay Loyal Just Because You Have a History Millennials are 2 to 3 times more likely to change service providers than any other generation. Trust in traditional banks is lower among Gen Z than Millennials. They are used to a digital experience with enhanced customer service, and they are not worried about leaving a current provider for a financial institution that meets all of their needs and reflects their values, which is especially important to younger members. And soon, those customers will make up the majority of the workforce. In fact, 30% of millennials report they have left their current bank or credit union because they found another finserv organization that provided a better experience. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – How Appointment Management Solutions Help The increasing demands of the millennial customer are concerning to the legacy structure of the finserv industry, however, there are ways to keep the value of your business interactions while implementing solutions to attract the growing population of millennial customers and reduce churn, especially as younger audiences crave seamless digital experiences rather than generic digital upgrades. An appointment management tool offers multiple solutions to your millennial customer problem, and the right digital tools should simplify banking while preserving a personal touch. Paired with stronger appointment management, personalized financial advice can be a meaningful differentiator for banks and credit unions. 1. Improve Customer Experience With New Insight Into Customer Behavior When your organization leverages an appointment management solution, you will gain additional insight that supports more personalized digital experiences based on the customer’s behavior and history with your organization. When you have an integrated scheduling platform, your customer-facing staff can access all the information collected during the appointment-booking. This will allow them to prepare for their upcoming appointment with the customer, and 68% of younger consumers now expect AI-driven financial tools and personalized recommendations. That preparation helps staff align advice to a customer’s current life stage, whether they are building savings or, as 32% of Gen Z report, focused on starting an emergency fund, enabling them to provide the enhanced customer experience the millennial customer craves. 2. Give Your Customers What They Want With Real-Time Online Appointment Scheduling With an integrated appointment management solution, you can offer real-time, 24/7 online appointment scheduling as part of seamless digital banking experiences for younger consumers. This will allow your customers to schedule in-person interactions with your organization whenever and wherever they want, minimizing human interactions with your organization, which the millennial customer loves to avoid. Younger consumers also value unique digital tools that help members manage day-to-day needs, including automated savings and financial education tools, especially since 46% of Gen Z feel stressed about finances regularly. Additionally, when your customers book appointments online, they will also receive reminders on their smartphones, which the average millennial checks about 43 times a day, reducing the chances of no-show appointments. 3. Keep Customers Loyal With Direct Feedback With an appointment management solution, your organization can send out automated follow-up emails to customers to gain feedback on the experience they had, helping you meet younger members where they are and strengthen your credit union’s reputation. People