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By Tracey E. Schelmetic

Editorial Director,
Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine

 

It’s not hard to prognosticate that as today’s consumers under the age of 25 get older, the world will be forced to become more digital in order to accommodate them. These are young people who have grown up in front of PCs; and even the oldest in this generation can barely remember a time before e-mail and Web surfing. Taken as a whole, they are an instant gratification generation with shorter attention spans than previous generations. If you explain to them that once upon a time, business people frequently communicated via postal mail … sending a letter, waiting days for it to arrive in the recipient’s office, then days more for the recipient to post a response … they look at you as if you have three heads and crab claws for arms. You must also explain that once upon a time, long-distance telephone calls were quite expensive, and many businesses had only one phone line. My grandparents were a part of a generation that believed that if you make or receive a long-distance phone call, somebody must have died. There was no other excuse for such extravagance.

 

But today’s teens and twenty-somethings, already a large consumer spending group, will become even more sought after in the next decade as their incomes rise. Companies that cannot market to them properly will not survive. It’s one of the reasons that large consumer companies are spending a great deal of money on software and services for Web self-service, e-mail and chat.

 

But the rest of the world needs to catch up.

 

I'm older than 25 by … err … quite a bit. I tend to be rather more tech-oriented than average for my demographic, so I think I'm a good harbinger for the types of troubles Generation All-Digital will run into when they become professional, independent consumers.

 

I went out for drinks last night with friends to celebrate a birthday. When I parked my car in back of the martini lounge, I noticed a cute little restaurant tucked behind the main block of shops. It said “Oyster Bar” and “Brasserie” on the windows, and boasted a very attractive outdoor seating area … shaded by trees, and decorated with fairy lights and candles. “How wonderful,” I thought, “A place to go and get drinks and oysters on hot summer nights.” I wondered what the restaurant’s menu was like.

I continue to wonder in vain. Like too many restaurants today, the establishment has no Web site.

Think what a Web site could do for a restaurant: It could inform potential customers, like myself, of the restaurant's dress code, wine list, opening hours, ambience, reservation policies and menu (with prices … though we know most chefs think their culinary creations are priceless and talking about money is pedestrian, I’d like to know in advance how much a meal is going to set me back). I could put my e-mail address on a mailing list via the Web site, and the restaurant could send me an e-mail update periodically: “Chef’s Special Today: Sea Scallops!” “Every Tuesday Night: A Complimentary Glass Of Wine With Every Entrée.” “We Have Added New Low-Carb Menu Items!” A more sophisticated restaurant Web site could even allow diners to book their own reservations and automatically e-mail reminders the morning of the reservation date. The restaurant could post coupons for slow, early-midweek nights to tempt diners: “Every Monday And Tuesday: 15 Percent Off All Entrées.”

I find many small, independent hotels and bed and breakfasts are guilty of the same lack of Web presence. All I know is that I, for one, would never stay in a bed and breakfast that has no Web site. My first thought would be: “What are they hiding?” followed by: “Are their prices high?” “Are they unable to generate attractive photos of the exterior and interior of the place, from any angle whatsoever?” “Are they a front for organized crime or human organ smuggling, and when I have a drink before bed and fall asleep, will I wake up in a freight container on my way to Siberia and minus a few moderately important internal organs?”

Once Generation All-Digital gets its shiny new credit cards and expense accounts, not to mention swaps its preference for Ramen noodles and 12-dollars-per-case beer for raw oysters and a nice fumé blanc, it will be more important than ever that every business that plans to interact with this demographic go digital.

Otherwise, these young consumers will assume you’ve got something to hide. Or worse, they’ll never know you exist in the first place.

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