PNC Bank Breaks Through Gen Y Blindspot

Last year I proclaimed that Banks Have A Gen Y Blind Spot. Well, that’s no longer true for all banks. It turns out that PNC enlisted IDEO to help engage Gen Y and created a new offering: VirtualWallet. According to a recent BusinessWeek article, PNC has signed up more than 20,000 customers (70% from Gen Y) and is on track to break even in two years.

Here’s how VirtualWallet is described on the IDEO Website:

[It is] a family of banking products that provide customers with seamless access to their finances and intuitive, tangible, and direct control of their money. Centered on electronic transactional banking, it is designed to both promote and optimize banking activities with features and visualizations that support the mental models and lifestyles of its Gen Y customers

My take: I really like VirtualWallet. It shows what you can do when you explicitly focus on Gen Y. The long-term success will require ongoing nurturing by PNC, but the initial approach makes a lot of sense because:

• It applies a strategy called online infusion. While it’s a financial offering, online features like a money slide bar to graphically indicate available funds, a “Savings Engine” that helps customers establish rules around spending, and a playful instant transfer feature named “Punch the Pig” are core to the value proposition.
• The online experience implements many components of the four strategies we’ve defined for engaging Gen Y: 1) Immediacy, 2) Gen Y literacy, 3) Individualism, and 4) Social Interactivity.
• There’s a mobile component. While this wouldn’t make sense for many banking applications based on overall mobile usage, it’s almost a requirement if you want to target Gen Y; many of whom view their cell phone as their primary digital device.
• The approach starts with customer needs. While this is not novel for projects that involve IDEO, many companies aren’t diligent enough in starting with a solid process for uncovering the true needs of specific customer segments. By understanding Gen Y behaviors, the bank can actually charge fees for anything more than 3 checks per month.

The bottom line: Gen Y will be getting a lot more attention from banks.

Engaging Gen Y With Immediacy

We just published a report called Engage Gen Y Online With Immediacy which examines one of the four design approaches that we’ve outlined for reaching Gen Y: Immediacy (the others design approaches are Gen Y literacy, individualism, and interactivity). The research examined the online experiences of a handful of retailers, auto insurers, auto makers, and wireless carriers to find positive examples of the following three strategies for immediacy:

1. Refresh and update content constantly. Changing content frequently and updating feature page elements on a regular basis give users a reason to return over time.
2. Expose value immediately. Delivering clear calls to action and interactive cues help draw young visitors into experiences right away.
3. Provide frequent feedback. Presenting notifications, rewards, and other feedback to users throughout an experience keeps them alert and engaged.

Here are some examples of immediacy best practices that we found:

• AT&T displays updated lists of its newest and most popular phones.
• Several insurers start the quoting process right on their homepages.
• Old Navy provides an online only “sneak peak” at upcoming styles.
• Victoria’s Secret’s “Dress Shop” section provides pictures of products as users roll over navigation options for dress types.
• Zappos’ checkout highlights that some items are almost out of stock.
• Scion’s “Tweaks Of The Week” showcases vehicle modifications submitted by actual Scion owners.
• Old Navy engages users with recommendations to “complete the outfit.”
• Allstate provides a quick path to value by offering the choice to “get ballpark estimates without giving your name.”
• T-Mobile provides an interactive slider and buttons on its homepage to select plans.

I need to give a shout out to Andrew McInnes who was the researcher on this project (which means he did most of the work) and to Ross Popoff-Walker who worked with me on defining the Gen Y design strategies. 

The bottom line: Give Gen Y what they want: immediate gratification.

Which Customer Experience Topics Are Hot?

I like to look at how many people (Forrester clients) are reading my research reports. It helps me figure out the topics that people care about. So I decided to share some of that info in this post. These are my 15 most-read documents over the last 6 months [along with their publications dates]:

1. The Customer Experience Index, 2007 [Nov. 07]
2. The Gen Y Design Guide [Dec. 07]
3. Young Gen Yers: Fun-Loving, Social, And Wired [Jan. 08]
4. The Experiences That Satisfy Consumers [Feb. 08]
5. The Business Impact Of Customer Experience [Mar. 08]
6. Gen Y Is Truly Different; Design Accordingly [Nov. 07]
7. Experience-Based Differentiation [Jan. 07]
8. Obstacles To Customer Experience Success, 2008 [Feb. 08]
9. Customer Experience Innovation In Three Steps [Feb. 08]
10. The Strength Of Customer Relationships [Feb. 08]
11. Customer Experience Index Snapshot: Banking [Nov. 07]
12. The Chief Customer/Experience Officer Playbook [Oct. 07]
13. Customer Experience Index Snapshot: Insurance Carriers [Nov. 07]
14. Lessons Learned From 1,001 Web Site Reviews [May 07]
15. Customer Experience Index Snapshot: Retail [Nov. 07]

(Here are links to my complete list of research and my 2008 research agenda).

My take: Some observations about this readership…

• Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD), the oldest piece of research on this list, remains a vibrant blueprint for customer experience excellence. I continue to get a lot of demand on this topic for speeches, workshops, and advisory sessions. I am very excited about my current research on “Customer Centric DNA” which will illuminate the third principle of EBD: “Treat customer experience as a competence, not a function.” Look for that to get published in late June.
• Clearly the Forrester’s Customer Experience Index is hot, especially with three of our key industries: banking, insurance, and retail. We plan to repeat that research again this year, with even more industries.
• Many companies are beginning to actively look at how to reach Gen Y. Our data shows that these consumers are quite different and relatively underserved across many industries.
• One of my newer reports, The Business Impact Of Customer Experience, is getting a ton of readership because people are looking for quantitative proof (to reinforce their intuition) that customer experience is tied to loyalty. Well, this research shows that it is. So now it’s time for companies to get moving and make some improvements.
• Customer experience remains a hot topic overall. I continue to have the highest level of readership at Forrester; the number of clients that read my research during the past 6 months was nearly 70% higher than the second analyst on the list.

The bottom line: If people keep reading, then I’ll keep writing.

Banks Need A Youthful Overhaul

In a post from late last year, Banks Have A Gen Y Blind Spot, I discussed that banks aren’t serving young consumers very well. Well, we found the same thing in a recent research effort, Customer Relationship Snapshot: Banks.

This analysis examined feedback from 5,000 consumers across 5 generations (Gen Y, Gen X, Younger Boomers, Older Boomers, and Seniors) on overall customer experience; satisfaction with Web, branch, and phone interactions; as well as consumer plans to stay loyal to their current banks. Here’s some of what we found:

• Seniors have their needs met most frequently
• Seniors are the most satisfied with phone and in-branch interactions
• Gen X are the least satisfied with phone, in-branch, and Web interactions
• Seniors are the least likely to switch banks
• Gen Y are the most likely to switch banks; Gen X the next most likely

The bottom line: The battle for the next generation of banking customers is wide open (check here for some ideas: Gen Y Design Guide).

Hulu.com Showcases Gen Y Design

Matt Vella wrote an interesting article in Business Week called How Hulu’s Design Gets It Right (and he included some quotes from me). Hulu is a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal that lets users stream television episodes, films from Warner Bros. and Lionsgate, as well as sports content.

The article looks at Hulu.com as a good example of Gen Y design. While I didn’t do a review of the site, on the surface it adheres to many of the principles that we defined in the Gen Y Design Guide (here’s a shout out to Ross Popoff-Walker who led much of our Gen Y research).

On a related note, I just published a couple of reports that examine customer relationships across generations of consumers: ”Customer Relationship Snapshot: Retailers“ and “Customer Relationship Snapshot: Banks.” In both banking and retail, it turns out that Gen Yers are the most likely to switch providers.

The bottom line: If you want business from Gen Y, design for them.

Trend Watch #2: The McKinsey Quarterly “Eight Business Technology Trends To Watch”

In this Trend Watch, I’m taking a closer look at the following article from The McKinsey Quarterly: “Eight Business Technology Trends To Watch.” While you can see the full list of trends at the bottom of this post, here are the five items that I think are most important for customer experience:

#2) Using Consumers As Innovators. Excerpt: “As the Internet has evolved – an evolution prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologies – it has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds.”

• My take: What’s a trends doc without a reference to Web 2.0?!? I’m not sure that online consumers will become the core innovative force for companies in 2008, but firms definitely need to tap into the online voice of customers — as they blog, write customer reviews, and connect with each other in new ways on the Internet. This is particularly true if you’re going after younger consumers.

#3) Tapping Into A World Of Talent. Excerpt: “As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence… The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy.”

• My take: The Net definitely makes it easier to tap into a variety of workers in new ways. But it’s hard enough to keep a centralized workforce aligned; think about how hard it is when the talent is ultra-dispersed. In this environment, it is even more important that companies have a clear sense of purpose and a well defined and internally-communicated brand (see principle #2 of Experience-Based Differentiation). These items will help maintain consistency across the myriad of activities and decisions that go one across your company.

#5) Expanding The Frontiers Of Automation. Excerpt: “Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What’s more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities.”

• My take: The combination of service-oriented architecture (which connects disparate applications) and business process management systems (which can flexibly control processes) opens up the opportunity to automate many processes. Firms will squeeze inefficiencies out of customer-facing processes like applications, problem resolution, and credit approval. But don’t just automate processes; redesign them to better meet the needs of customers.

#6) Unbundling Production From Delivery. Excerpt: “Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever-smaller increments cost effectively… Unbundling is attractive from the supply side because it lets asset-intensive businesses raise their utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the demand side, unbundling offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment”

• My take: Interestingly, in 2000 we wrote a report called eBusiness Networks in which we predicted that: “Processes like customer care that span manufacturer, distributor, and retailer can be shared in eBusiness networks. Rather than design captive business processes, companies will plug into shared systems.”So I’m bought into this unbundling trend. Every firm needs to ask themselves: “How can my product/service be delivered as a metered service?”

#7) Putting More Science Into Management. Excerpt: “Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models… The holy grail of deep customer insight-more granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customization-becomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing.”

• My take: No doubt; there’s more data than ever. So make sure you’ve got some strong left-brainers around to look at Web analytics and customer analytics; there’s a lot of valuable insights to be mined. But don’t get caught over-focusing on analysis — it’s only one part of the equation. Your organization needs to treat customers differently based on the insights and this often takes more ”art” than “science.”  

8 Business Technology Trends To Watch from McKinsey

Here are all of the items listed in The McKinsey Quarterly:

1. Distribution co-creation
2. Using Consumers As Innovators
3. Tapping Into A World Of Talent
4. Extracting More Value From Interactions
5. Expanding The Frontiers Of Automation
6. Unbundling Production From Delivery
7. Putting More Science Into Management
8. Making Businesses From Information.

Also see: Trend Watch #1: The Economist “The World In 2008 (Business) 

The bottom line: Look for a lot more connectivity; but temper it with common sense.

Designing Experiences For Gen Y

We just published a research report that I’ve alluded to in earlier posts called “The Gen Y Design Guide.” The research examines how Gen Y (ages 18 to 27) are different from older consumers and defines a set of implications for designing experiences. Here’s the executive summary from the research…

Gen Y consumers are a unique breed. But what exactly makes them different from their elders? Our research unearthed nine attributes of Gen Yers’ social, emotional, and mental makeup that shape their perception of interactions. To reach these young consumers, we’ve identified four design approaches: immediacy, Gen Y literacy, individualism, and social interactivity. To truly engage Gen Y, firms should create a Gen Y advisory board and apply Gen Y design approaches across touchpoints.

To get a sense of the world of Gen Yers, just take a look at the lyrics from a top-rated song “Crank That” from Soulja Boy:

What?!?! I have no idea what that means, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to know.

Our research uncovered the following key attributes of Gen Yers: 

• Socially Fluid And Highly Networked. Having gone through high school, college, or a first job, many Generation Yers are breaking away from their families and forging their own paths and networks. We found three characteristics that define Gen Yers socially. They are continually connected, speak their own language, and are influenced by peers.
• Emotionally Searching For Their Identities. Adolescents and early adults are at a period of self-discovery, shaped by their environment, education and activities, and social culture. That’s why they seek recognition and fame, enjoy absurdity – and humor with an odd slant, and embrace a variety of subcultures.
• Mentally Fickle And Creative. Few Generation Yers can remember a time when technology – from DVDs to PCs – did not play an important part in their lives. Having grown up with deep exposure to media and devices, they skim text and information quickly, are easily bored, and are expressive and creative.

Based on the unique characteristics of Gen Y, we defined four design approaches for appealing to them:

1. Design approach No. 1: immediacy. To overcome Generation Y’s fickle attention and broad use of media, firms need to hook Gen Yers in by quickly exposing value and then keeping them interested over time.
2. Design approach No. 2: Gen Y literacy. Because Gen Yers are so influenced by peers and their own communication style, firms need to speak to them authentically and on their level.
3. Design approach No. 3: individualism. Diverse and expressive, Generation Yers respond to experiences that allow them to personalize and customize their interactions.
4. Design approach No. 4: social interactivity. Since Gen Y consumers are very social, firms should consider enabling them to communicate and express themselves.

The bottom line: If you want to attract and engage Gen Yers, stop treating them like Boomers. 

We Can All (Hopefully) Learn From Halloween

Halloween is a lot of fun. 

You don’t know what you’re going to run into – from free candy in offices to co-workers dressed-up like vampires. And later today, I’m sure that my house will be invaded by swarms of Hannah Montana and Jason Varitek (and Tom Brady) look-a-likes demanding treats. It all seems to work out well for retailers who, according to an article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, rake in $5 billion.

Since the holiday has already been commercialized, I thought I’d suggest 5 ghoulish customer experience lessons that companies can learn from Halloween:

1. Kids just wanna have fun. In an upcoming research report called ”The Gen Y Design Guide,” we describe 4 strategies for designing experiences for younger consumers. These approaches are based on how young consumers are different mentally, socially, and emotionally from older consumers. One of the key things to keep in mind: They enjoy absurdity — and humor with an odd slant.

2. Treats avoid tricks. If you want to keep your customers from saying bad things about you, leaving you, or other bad “tricks,” then find ways to treat them well. When’s the last time that you designed a campaign to thank your good customers for being good customers (and not just to sell them something new)?

3. It’s not about your favorite candy. In this day and age of safety, most parents don’t let kids eat things like unwrapped candy or fruit. So even if you love eating hand-fulls of loose candy corns, you probably wouldn’t hand them out that way to the kids. When thinking about how you interact with customers, make sure that you keep their needs top of mind (and not overly focus on your own).

4. Safety always comes first. When kids come to your front door, you have to make sure that the stairs are well lit and free of clutter. No-one wants little kids hurting themselves. Customers deserve that same consideration around safety and security when you’re handling their personal information.

5. Don’t take things too seriously. It’s hard not to smile when you see kids dressed up in their Halloween gear. You should find a reason to smile like that every day.

 The bottom line: Have a wonderfully Happy Halloween!

What Men And Woman Want — Online

The title of this post (What Men And Woman Want — Online) is also the title of a research report that I published with Ross Popoff-Walker earlier this year (we had fun picking that title). In that report, we looked at what different consumer groups liked most about their online experiences. Since we had about 5,000 consumer responses, we were able to examine differences across both genders (male/famale) and generations (GenY, Gen X, Younger Boomers, Older Boomers, and Seniors). 

The survey asked consumers to select important elements in their most frequently visited site. One of the interesting pieces of insight came from looking at which consumers selected “it was fun.” Here’s what we found:

• Young consumers are the most fun loving. No surprise; Gen Y (males and females) were the most likely to select “it was fun” from the list. About 40% of those younger consumers thought it was an important element of their favorite site.
• Men become less interested in fun as they age. Gen Y males were slightly more likely to select “it was fun” than were Gen Y females. In older generations, however, females became more likely to say that fun was important. And the gap increases in every age group — growing from a 1% gap for Gen Xers (32% versus 31%) to a 6% gap in Seniors (24% versus 18%).

The bottom line: Consider infusing some ”fun” into your online efforts. It’s important for many Gen Yers and one-quarter of Senior females.

Banks Have A Gen Y Blind Spot

Let’s face it, large banks aren’t generally easy to do business with. In a recent Forrester Research report called “Consumers Don’t Enjoy Financial Services,”I examined survey responses from about 5,000 consumers who told us what they thought about their bank. Here are some tidbits from that research:

• 35% of consumers fall into a segment that we call “at-risk” because of their low level of enjoyment with their bank. Compared to other segments these ”at-risk” consumers are the youngest and have the highest income.
• Young females (Gen X and Gen Y) report the most problems with their banks

Banks know they have a problem. In a previous post called “Banks Prepare For Customer Experience Wars” I discussed a survey of banking execs that I did with American Banker. In that survey we found that:

• 97% of banking execs think that customer experience is very important or critical
• Most say that they aren’t meeting customers’ needs – especially online, where less than one-third of respondents gave their bank’s interactions a vote of confidence.

Hmmmmm. Doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that banks have a customer experience problem — especially with younger consumers.

Given that Gen Yers are really a different beast from older consumers (take a look at my presentation on Gen Yers within this post: A View Of Forrester’s Consumer Forum October), banks will need to focus explicitly on this younger segment.

The bottom line: FWIW, IMO b8nks need better Gen Y strats. HTH

A View Of Forrester’s Consumer Forum

Today was a great day in Chicago — at Forrester’s Consumer Forum. The place was hopping! I had a number of very interesting meetings with people. It’s always great to catch up with clients and friends and meet new people at this event.

I’m not going to try and recap the entire day. You can get that level of detail from the many bloggers covering the event — maybe starting with Forrester’s marketing blog. But here are some of my personal observations… 

• Christie Hefner called me a god. During Christie’s Q&A after her presentation, I was asking questions submitted by the audience from a microphone in the back of the ballroom. When I asked the first question, Christie said that it sounded like god. Okay, I sensationalized the point — but it was still a funny moment. Just call me “Bruce Almighty.”
• Charlene Li started a groundswell. Charlene delivered an outstanding opening keynote called “Your Customers Are Revolting ” The main framework of her presentation was the “Ladder Of Participation” which defined 6 levels of Social Computing involvement: Inactives, Spectators, Joiners, Collectors, Critics, and Creators. She also talked about the P.O.S.T. process (People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology). While all of that content was great, the most memorable moment for me was the story about the TV show Jericho. CBS canceled the show after it received poor ratings when placed opposite American Idol. Some radio guy mobilized the show’s fans and CBS ended up bringing back the show after these fans sent tons of peanuts to CBS Entertainment’s president.
• Richard Edelman is not sorry. Richard Edelman had an interesting discussion called “Be It, Don’t Buy It.” What struck me the most was his response to questions about the scandal about the somewhat inauthentic blog called Walmart Across America. Mr. Edelman showed no remorse and offered no apology. Should he have been sorry? I don’t know; you decide. But, interestingly, he opened his speech with the following quote from Tom Friedman’s column called “The Whole World Is Watching:”

In this transparent world, how you live your life and conduct your business matters more than ever… Companies that get their ‘hows’ wrong won’t be able to clean up their mess by taking a couple of reporters to lunch…But this also creates opportunities…’how’ you keep your promises…build trust…collaborate…lead

• Mobile puts the social back into Social Computing. That was the theme of Vidya Lakshmipathy’s presentation. She opened up her session with a great presentation about the role that mobile does/can/will play in social networks — starting with a personal story about using Dodgeball. She identified a number of different types of mobile social technologies: social networks, social mapping, media sharing, micro Blogs, and tagging. The majority of her session was dedicated to discussion with the twenty-something founders of two firms: Michael Sharon Nicholas Tommarello from Socialight and Nicholas Tommarello Michael Sharon from Urban Interactive. Socialight allows users to post “sticky notes” with in their current location — to comment on things like the food, the activities, or the great mural they see on a wall. Other people can search and find the sticky notes that are in their current location. Pretty cool stuff. Urban Interactive uses cell phones to create and carry out adult adventures. Michael used this tag line to describe what they do: “Transform cities into playgrounds.” One key lesson from the two of them: SIMPLICITY is the key to mobile design.
• Gen Y are different; design accordingly. That was the theme of my presentation with Ross Popoff-Walker. I thought it was a fun (and hopefully informative) presentation. You can see a handful of my favorite slides at the bottom of this post. Here’s how our presentation flowed:
  • After having some fun with the audience by looking at things have changed over the last 40 years, we talked about “a new creature” called Gen Yers. 
  • We showed a bunch of data to highlight how these youngsters are different. Compared to the overall US consumers, Gen Yers: Play video games 2.2x, Use cell phones 1.7x, Like to show off their taste and style 2.2x, Are influenced by what;s how and what’s not 1.9x, Store/listen to MP3s 1.8x, Watch DVDs on a PC 1.7x, Use IM 1.8x, Use social networking sites 2.7x, and Send/receive text messages 1.8x.
  • This data helped us identify 10 attributes that companies need to keep in mind when designing experiences for Gen Yers.  I had the most fun talking about how “Gen Y Speak Their Own Language.” To make that point, I showcased the lyrics from the #1 song on Billboard’s list: Crank That by Soulja Boy. 
  • Keeping in mind all of those attributes, we identified 4 strategies for designing online experiences for Gen Y: Immediacy, Gen Y Literacy, Individualism, and Social Interactivity.
  • Our presentation was chock-filled with fun examples. We’ll be publishing this research later this quarter.

That’s all for now. I’m heading home very early tomorrow morning, so I won’t have any more updates from the Consumer Forum.

The bottom line: It’s a great event; don’t miss it next year! 

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This Week @ Forrester’s Consumer Forum

Well, this will be a busy week. Forrester’s Consumer Forum called “Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies“ is happening on Thursday and Friday in Chicago. I think we’re expecting nearly 800 attendees. Here’s a blurb from the marketing literature:

Fueled by cheap devices and pervasive access, individuals are increasingly taking cues from one another rather than from institutions – a phenomenon that creates chaos for traditional brands, sellers, and media outlets.

It should be a great event. The industry speakers include Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEO, Playboy Enterprises; Christina Norman, President, MTV Networks; Robert J. Bach, President, Entertainment & Devices Division, Microsoft; and Richard Edelman, President and CEO, Edelman.

I’ve been responsible for creating a track called “Designing Great Social Experiences” and am really excited about the five sessions in the track:

• Designing Experiences For Young Consumers; led by Ross Popoff-Walker and me. We’ll be showcasing early results from research that we’ve been doing on how firms should design experiences for Gen Yers (18-27 year-olds). We’ll layout 10 characteristics of Gen Yers that firms should keep in mind when they’re designing experiences for these young consumers. And then we’ll provide 4 categories of design strategies to apply.
• Designing Mobile Social Networks, led by Vidya Lakshmipathy. Vidya will also be showcasing some new research on the ways that mobile can be used to enhance social networks. She’ll also be leading a discussion with execs at firms that have innovative mobile applications: Socialite and Urban Interactive.
• Customer Review Design Best Practices, led by Megan Burns. Amazon and NetFlix have successfully used customer reviews to help other people make good choices; and many firms are following their lead. In another presentation of brand new research, Megan will disect the key elements of a customer review and then show attendees how to use this information to build a robust customer review system.
• Blog Design Best Practices, led by Harley Manning. Harley will showcase Forrester’s Blog Review metholodology. Anyone that’s seen Harley speak in the past knows that this will be an action-packed session. (Forrester clients can access to this methodology, as well as others, by clicking this link: Forrester’s CxP methodologies).
• Social Computing Trends: An Interactive Agency Roundtable, led by Kerry Bodine. Kerry will discuss trends in social computing with execs from an exciting group of design agencies: Avenue A | Razorfish, VML, and Organic.

Many of the sessions are showcasing brand new research, so it should be a really interesting event!

I’ll write-up some highlights from the event in my blog: Stay tuned.

You may also want to check out the blog by two Forrester analysts — Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li — called “Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies.” Josh and Charlene are the keynote speakers at the event and they’re writing a book called Groundswell.

The bottom line: Chicago should be hopping this week.

Older Consumers Want Good Service

In a recently published research report called Service Trumps Price As Consumers Get Older, we examined what consumers care about most when shopping or doing business with financial services firms, insurers, and retailers. The analysis of nearly 5,000 consumers looked at data across five generations: Gen Y (20s), Gen X (30s), Younger Boomers (40s), Older Boomers (50s), and Seniors (60s+).  Some common things showed up in all three sectors:

• Younger consumers focus on low prices. For all three sectors, Gen Y was the group that cared about low prices more than every other generation. This focus on price dropped considerably with progressively older generations.
• Older consumers want good service. When it comes to financial services and insurance, Seniors care the most about good service. And while good service isn’t the top concern for Seniors when they deal with a retailer, it is clearly one of the more important attributes. The need for good service declines with progressivley younger generations. 

The bottom line: To reach older consumers, make sure that your marketing messages (and offerings) convey (and provide) good service.

The “Enjoyability” Genderation Gap

In a recent comment to my posting on NetPromoter vs. Satisfaction (which is a topic that often evolves into almost a religious debate), someone mentioned generational differences in how consumers interact (younger consumers are more likely to “recommend” than are older consumers). A lot of my research deals with consumer behavior — looking at topics like this — so I thought it might be good to include some elements of my research in that area on this blog. Rather than dealing with the “recommend” topic (we’ll let that discussion continue in the comments), I’ll dig into some of the differences in “Enjoyability.”

In a Forrester report called “Gen X Males Crave More Enjoyment” I analyzed survey responses from more than 5,000 consumers — examining how they enjoy doing business with 14 different types of companies. There’s a lot of data in that report, but let me highlight a few key findings:

• Male Gen Xers want a lot more enjoyment. When it comes to every category of business except airlines, Gen X males were at or near the top in their willingness to switch providers for a more enjoyable experience.
• Seniors aren’t looking for more enjoyment. Female Seniors was one of the groups least likely to leave its current provider for a better experience – except when it came to the group’s dealings with general department stores. Male Seniors felt the same disinterest in moving business away from six of the different types of companies.
• Female Gen Yers have more enjoyment than their male peers. Young consumers are split down gender lines when it comes to enjoyability. Gen Y males give some of the lowest marks to seven firms while Gen Y females give some of the highest marks to four of the firms.

There are significant differences in both generations and genders (we sometimes refer to this analysis as a look at “genderations” – a shout out to Eric Dolan, a researcher at Forrester, for creating that term). So your strategy had better be clear on what you want to accomplish with each of these genderations.