It is said that Millennials are the easiest generation to reach but the hardest to understand. But who are they really? Let's try to find out.

In this article I'll try to be your interpreter by giving you a millennial introduction. I'll let you in on their importance to your business based on their sheer numbers and their direct economic impact, and why their preferences and behaviour are increasingly bleeding into the customer behaviour of older generations. If you're in business today, it makes good economic sense to focus on millennial customer expectations because their purchasing power is monumental and will effect your business.

To understand and act according to their rules or anticipation, it's important to acknowledge the following about the Millennials:

The phones Millennials use have always been smart
The internet has always been on
They likely never waited in line at the bank or in a queue at all
They rarely waited for letters to arrive by mail
They seldom had their musical choices limited to the radio or any other device fit on a mass-marked CD
Millennials have grown up at a time when it's possible to align their shopping with their values -in other words they've had the chance to choose between human, green, fairtrade, organic, employee owned or not.

Serving customers today and tomorrow means finding the best ways to streamline customer experience through technology, and delivering the most authentic, genuine human-to-human customer service where such service makes a difference. This is not easy. Adapting your mindset to successfully serving new and rapidly evolving customers will take up your attention, creativity and hard work.

I always find it interesting to look into personas when encountering a new target group, or a new generation of people in this case. It is easier to understand a generation of people and their mindsets if we have some sort of generalisations to refer to. At Mission, we work with personas to make sure our clients really know, understand and act according to their customers' needs and behaviour. To be clear, I don't think Millennials can be placed into categories with defined interests and motivations.

A millennial introduction

Generation Y. Generation Me. According to the suits, Millennials are anyone born between 1980 and 1996. But how boring is that description? If you ask them, they are the most diverse and educated generation in history. They want to make a difference. And nobody puts them in a corner. Not a bad reference for a Millennial, right? They learned to walk with a thousand songs in their pockets (iTunes), learned to shave with Facebook, and took their iPhone to the prom. They trust their peers more than anyone. Which is why they share almost anything online, and pretty much coined the phrase “T.M.I.” Sure, we live in a digital world. Yes, we’re glued to our devices. And no, you can’t browse through our photos.

Here’s the thing: they still crave human engagement. They ask us to talk to them, challenge them, and be honest with them. They’re feedback-driven and entrepreneurially-minded, even though they are not all entrepreneurs. They are "The Purpose Generation" . And they matter.

Some interesting numbers

80 million

In the U.S alone they count for over 80 millions and represent the largest segment of the population and the workforce.

92 percent

92 % of them trust recommendations from their friends and family above all other forms of advertising.

30 trillion

USD 30 trillion is expected to be transferred to Millennials in the largest wealth transfer in history! I always find it interesting to take a closer look at personalities (personas) when approaching a new target group, or in this case, a new generation. It is easier to understand a generation and their point of view if we have some generalizations to refer to. In Mission, we work with personality types (personas) to be sure that our customers really know and understand their customers' wishes and needs, and act accordingly. To be clear, I do not believe that the millennial generation can be placed into categories with defined interests and motivations. Nevertheless, I have written down some characteristics that show the great importance of this generation for the society we live in.

Millennials as customers: 5 characteristics you need to understand

Millennials expect technology to simply work so you’d better make sure that it does. They’ve grown up with digital devices that bundle communication, entertainment, shopping , mapping, and education all in one. Naturally, Millennials embrace and align themselves with technology. Because of this identification with technology, Millennials tend to adopt new technology more quickly compared with the more skeptical approaches of previous generations.

1. Millennials simply expect technology to work, because that’s been their experience...

… and mobile is the technology closest to their hearts. Millennials (in large part) don’t watch TV, don’t go to church and don’t, it appears, dream—they text. More than four out of five sleep with or next to their mobiles. They own more mobiles and use these more, text more and text while driving (yikes) more than other generations. Smartphones, in other words, are the new catchall: a happy hour, a bar for hookups, a concierge, a style advisor. For the generation that rarely smokes, mobiles have even replaced smoking as the thing to do in those lonely moments when existential angst threatens to encroach.

2. Millennials are a social generation—and they socialise while consuming (and deciding to consume) your products and services.

Millennials are a sociable generation. This sociability is expressed online as well as in real life (“IRL”), particularly in the many areas where online and offline activities and circles of friends overlap. Offline, Millennials are more likely than other generations to shop, dine and travel with groups, whether these are organised interest groups, less formal groupings of peers or excursions with extended family, according to Boston Consulting Group data. Online, their sharing habits on Facebook, Snapchat and other social sites, and the opinions they offer on TripAdvisor and Amazon reflect their eagerness for connection, as do their electronic alerts to friends and followers that show off where they are, where they’re coming from and where they’re headed—online alerts that reflect and affect behavior in the physical world. This social behavior has big implications for those of us who serve customers. A shopping habit that sets Millennials apart from non Millennials is their tendency to shop in groups and seek the opinions of others. More than two-thirds of millennials, don’t make a major decision until they have discussed it with a few people they trust, compared to around half of all nonmillennials. 70% of millennials are more excited about a decision they’ve made when their friends agree with them, compared to 48% of nonmillennials. Female millennials in particular regard shopping as a group activity, shopping twice as often with their spouses, friends or family members as do nonmillennial women.

3. Millennials don’t consume food, beverages, services, products or media in silence.

They eat noisily (so to speak) and very visually. They review, blog and snap, update Wikipedia entries and post Youtube and Instagram videos. Often these posts concern their consumption activities, interests, and aspirations. All told as Boston Consulting Group reports, “the vast majority of Millennials report taking action on behalf of brands and sharing brand preferences in their social groups.”

The Most Surprising Group They Socialise With? Their Parents: Here’s a revolutionary fact about millennials: They get along with their parents. Teenagers today get into fewer fights with their parents than Mom and Dad did with theirs as teens. According to authors Joeri Van den Bergh and Mattias Behrer, six out of 10 teens eat with their family four or more nights per week. Incredibly, 85% of teens name one of their parents as their best friend, rather than naming a peer. And more than a third of Millennials of all ages say they influence what products their parents buy, what shops and restaurants they visit and what trips they take.

This striking lack of conflict between generations means that Millennials can be vital carriers of a business’s commercial message to not only their friends but also their parents. At the rate they’re spreading the word, it won’t be long until almost everyone passes for a millennial, as far as attitude and buying patterns go.

4. They collaborate and cooperate with each other and, when possible, with brands.

Millennials have a positive, community-oriented “we can fix it together” mindset. Millennials want everyone to get along, and they think everyone should be able to. As authors Van den Bergh and Behrer put it, “Contrary to previous generations, Generation Y'ers were brought up in an atmosphere of equal relationships and co-decision-making.” Parents and educators throughout their childhood emphasised collaboration and cooperation, as did even the shows they grew up with: Millennials cut their TV teeth on the collaboration-themed educational television shows Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine and Sesame Street.

Millennials enjoy the possibility of collaborating with businesses and brands, as long as they believe their say matters to the company in question. They don’t necessarily see a clear boundary between the customer and the brand, the customer, and marketer, and the customer and service provider. Alex Castellarnau at Dropbox, the popular file transfer service, put it this way: With millennials, “a new brand, service or product is only started by the company; it’s finished by the customers. Millennials are a generation that wants to co-create the product, the brand, with you. Companies that understand this and figure out ways to engage in this co-creation relationship with Millennials will have an advantage.

5. They’re looking for adventure (and whatever comes their way).

When shopping, they prefer an “experimental” retail environment, where shopping is more than a transaction and the pleasure of being in the store isn’t limited to the goods that customers take home.

More than twice as many Millennials as those in other age brackets say they are willing “to encounter danger in pursuit of excitement.” This may sound irrelevant to you as a businessperson if you don’t sell bungee ropes or the like, but consider the idea of “danger” more broadly than actual risk to life or limb. Embracing danger as a customer can mean traveling across the city for artisanal cupcakes, knowing that there’s a high risk for disappointment since the bakery famously sells out each day before 10 a.m., or shopping, as a lark, at a popup store with no history and nothing but word of mouth to recommend it.

While growing up, young Millennials were revered, praised, sheltered, befriended and carefully guided by their parents to lead well-structured lives based on adherence to clear and mutually agreed-upon rules. This has produced a generation of young people that is, by most measures, accomplished, self-confident, group-oriented, and optimistic.

When Millennials dine out, for example, they’re often in search of something exotic, adventuresome, memorable, or new to explore during their dining experience. This has helped food trucks become a success (a concept sure to evoke fears of stomachache in some older people).

Millennials are a highly value-driven generation, specifically regarding civic values, the values that relate to good citizenship. This may be attributed to their upbringing. While growing up, young Millennials were revered, praised, sheltered, befriended and carefully guided by their parents to lead well-structured lives based on adherence to clear and mutually agreed-upon rules. This has produced a generation of young people that is, by most measures, accomplished, self-confident, group-oriented, and optimistic.

In large part, this generation polls as a gentle, loving, and a very authentic-minded generation; specifically speaking, polls conducted at a similar age with previous generations displayed less of these civic values inclinations. It's a fact that Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and a democratic candidate in the recent US presidential election, was the most popular candidate among Millennial voters in the primary phase. He had an honest and authentic approach. In April this year, the Washington Post viewed him as changing the way Millennials viewed politics, saying, "He's not moving a party to the left. He's moving a generation to the left."

In the United Kingdom, the majority of Millennials opposed the British withdrawal from the European Union. Blaming the Baby boomers, (baby boomer are the demographic group born during the post-World War II baby boom, approximately between the years 1946 and 1964) who largely supported the referendum, one young BBC commenter said: "The younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages, and experiences we will be denied. "

This being said the Millennials are concerned with more than political and ethical issues. They also care about what’s genuine and authentic as mentioned above. This interest falls somewhere between a purely aesthetic preference and a search for honesty, for truth.

A warning about generalisations, including my own

I’ve provided many generalisations here that I find valuable in understanding and, ultimately, successfully serving Millennials as customers. But I want to add an important note to these generational generalizations.

Your customer is an individual first and a millennial (or a Baby boomer or a member of the Silent Generation) second. Knowledge of a macro trend can make you a lot of money over time. However, it’s something that can also cost you dearly if your eyes keep looking at them as a generation rather than individuals. Even if my descriptions, on average, suit your customer’s generational, the specific customer in front of you may not.

Conversely, don’t assume these generalisations only apply to millennials. Because of millennials’ influence on their elders, as well as their elders’ increasing comfort level with technology, many expectations, and behaviours that are now standard for Millennials will soon spread to the majority of customers.

What the future will bring

When discussing and advising my clients on customer behaviour, I always emphasise the fact that your customers - all of them - change. All of them think differently about customer service and customer experience, they buy your products, or decide not to buy, they rave about your service or tell their friends to avoid you, enhancing, or depressing, your bottom line. All based on factors your business may never have considered. Every trend that affects your business subtly today will actively confront your business tomorrow, or within a few years. That's why it's important to understand and get acquainted when a new generation turns up. The millennial customer is especially important to understand, because, within the next few years, Millennials will bring to your business the greatest spending power of any generation to date.

The opportunity and the challenge

Serving customers today and tomorrow means finding the best ways to streamline customer experience through technology, and delivering the most authentic, genuine human-to-human customer service where such service makes a difference. This is not easy. Adapting your mindset to successfully serving new and rapidly evolving customers will take up your attention, creativity, and hard work. Mission has the experience and knowledge to help, guide and facilitate for this, so you don't make the mistake of missing the opportunity.