By Jen Dimenna, SVP Product at Apiture
When strategizing how to attract Gen Z and Millennial consumers to your bank or credit union, you must first consider their mindset. As digital-first consumers with a focus on instant gratification, they have interacted with the digital space for most, if not all, their lives. Convenient and customized digital experiences are all that they know and expect from all interactions.
Gen Z and Millennial consumers are much more dependent on the internet compared to older generations. According to a study conducted by The Center for Generational Kinetics, if younger consumers go more than 4 hours without internet access, they become uncomfortable. This digital dependency means that they bank differently than their parents and grandparents, primarily using online banking products and services rather than branch locations.
And generational differences are not just limited to how consumers access banking products and services. Because Gen Z and Millennial consumers have grown up in the digital age, they feel more comfortable with data privacy than do older generations. The same study indicated that younger consumers are open to providing personal data to enable a more personalized experience over an anonymous one.
What Does This Mean for Your Financial Institution?
The best way to win over Gen Z and Millennial consumers is to prioritize the experience for younger users. Aim to create a robust banking experience that matches the site experiences of the biggest banking apps. Consider integrating real-time features into your platform, such as Zelle® for payments and financial health tools to help consumers monitor spending, improve finances, and gain visibility into their credit score. Advanced support options, such as text, chat, video, and screensharing, are also important to be more in line with younger consumers.
Gen Zers and Millennials demand a personalized experience, and newer, highly intuitive data intelligence solutions are available to help community financial institutions deliver those experiences, even without large in-house data teams. For example,tools can evaluate your users’ digital banking activities and allow you to present them with relevant, tailored offers at the point of need.
The key to building relationships with this demographic is to offer the increased convenience and customized experience these users have come to expect. Learn ways to improve your digital platform to make it more attractive to these consumers with our white paper, “The Way to Gen Z and Millennial Hearts? It’s All About the Experience.”