Move over Millennials, Gen Z now has a seat at the financial table.
It may be hard for older professionals to believe, but the oldest Gen Z consumers are already 23 years old and some have entered the workforce. Banks and credit unions should treat this generation as a huge opportunity: an opportunity to establish lifelong customers early in their careers with massive growth potential, to stay ahead of the curve of evolving consumer expectations, and to expand the way financial institutions provide value to customers. Consider the following when thinking about your Gen Z customer acquisition stragegy.
Focus On Your Mobile Experience
Dialing in your mobile experience should be priority #1 for Gen Z. Gen Z is still in a phase where they are likely to use physical branches outside of COVID-19 due to economic insecurity and being in the early stages of their financial lives, but they’re also heavily dependent on mobile, conducting transactions with regularity and expecting a fluent omni-channel experience. Intuitive interfaces, easy help, dashboards that help them make sense of finances and new features like AI and sophisticated chatbots can all help aid the mobile experience for Gen Z.
The Expectations Are Higher
Along with having more mobile interactions, Gen Z simply has higher expectations when it comes to their digital interactions with a brand or service. This younger generations is too young to have gone through the same digital struggles of past generations, such as clunky interfaces or semi-regular bugs, so creating a fluent and well-oiled experience is of the utmost importance for wooing this generation.
In some ways, this goes with other trends we’re seeing, but financial institutions should work to be more consultative with Gen Z consumers. Specifically, helping to provide valuable insight into their finances will be huge for this generation moving forward. Pertinent analytics about their financial health and spending habits is a great place to start, and organizations that can capture this in a meaningful way will win a large market share of this generation in the future.
Gen Z Hates Debt
Learning from their older Millennial peers, Gen Z is uniquely aware of the debt they have incurred or are currently incurring while in school, or they’re taking active steps to avoid taking on student debt by exploring other options of employment and education. Regardless of their personal circumstances, as a generation, they are hyper-aware of debt and are vigilant to avoid to at all costs. This specific insight should provide a template for financial institutions. How can they help this generation conquer debt? How can customer data be uniquely used to process this information, provide a clear picture, and provide realistic goals? Using Gen Z data to help them achieve their goals, particularly in terms of debt, will separate winners and losers moving forward when working to acquire this next generation of customers.
