New Talkdesk research has revealed that 88% of Gen Z consumers are loyal to only five companies or fewer.
The “Winning Gen Z Through Exceptional Customer Service” report also reveals two fundamental drivers of this loyalty. These are:
- Allowing customers to resolve service issues easily and conveniently
- Addressing their concerns and priorities beyond the context of customer service alone
Systematically isolating and addressing customer pain points, exploiting advancements in intelligent self-service, and furthering agent enablement are widespread initiatives to lower effort and increase customer convenience. Since the rise of the customer effort metric in 2010, such initiatives have become increasingly commonplace.
Fewer tried-and-tested strategies exist to exploit the value of the second driver. Nevertheless, Talkdesk recommends that businesses place more significance on developing an “authentic and cohesive” omnichannel support strategy.
By following this recommendation, companies pave the way for customers to engage wherever and whenever they need. According to McKinsey & Company, this is crucial as: “Customers believe they can get whatever they want, whenever they want, within minutes.”
Perhaps this suggests that companies must also evolve the goal of omnichannel deployment to provide customer choice more tactfully, presenting options in a way that promotes the shortest path to their ideal outcome.
Such a strategy gains momentum as Talkdesk states: “Gen Zs put little premeditated thought into channel preference.”
Indeed, David Gardner, Vice President of Research and Insights at Talkdesk, states:
Gen Z consumers are open to engaging with companies through a broad variety of different service channels and are more likely to have engaged with AI-enabled channels, like virtual chat or voice support, as well as through social media.
As these AI-enabled channels develop and the spending power of Gen Z customers comes to the fore, the potential of customer-facing bots increases.
The Talkdesk study supports this, finding that 78% of Gen Z consumers have engaged in virtual chat with automated AI instead of only 38% of Baby Boomers.
Finally, thinking beyond the convenience of digital experience alone, Gen Z will also pay much closer attention to the messaging and communication regarding issues that matter to them.
The research highlights that 46% of Gen Z consumers stopped buying from a company in the past year due to its stance on social issues, compared with only 22% of Boomers.
Such a statistic highlights the potential of fighting for social causes across the enterprise and how businesses can further exploit this second driver of customer loyalty.
More Fascinating Findings from The Talkdesk Report
The Talkdesk report also reveals many more thought-provoking insights into Gen Z customer loyalty. Standouts include:
- Only 31% of Gen Z customers have become loyal to a new company in the past year
- 54% of Gen Z consumers have stopped buying from a company in the past year due to an instance of poor customer service
- 24% of Gen Z want to interact with customer service over the phone
These findings stem from 5,513 consumer interviews conducted in October 2021. These consumers were based in 12 different global markets across four continents: North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.
Discover the findings of further Talkdesk research into loyalty and CX by reading our article: Customer Loyalty is Changing Reveals New Talkdesk Research
