Millennials, also known as Gen-Y, are the largest generation by far in U.S. and world history. As customers, millennials (born 1980-2000, give or take) will soon have the largest spending power–eclipsing, within a few years from now, even that of the Boomer generation.
Millennials, more than previous generations at the same age, strive to buy where their values lie–whenever they can afford to. They will reward your company if its behavior matches their own ethics and punish you if it doesn’t. (And this phenomenon is spilling outward from the millennial demographic. Regardless of their age, customers today have unprecedented choices available to them, a situation that has created an opportunity to buy based on convictions, which was a much harder task decades ago.)
A business that wants to win the hearts of today’s consumers benefits from standing for something and meaning it. ”Meaning it” is key: Customers are always on the lookout for corporate hypocrisy. One test for gauging an organization’s trustworthiness is whether it engages in greenwashing, the practice of merely paying lip service to environmental issues. Greenwashing is considered bad enough on its own, but customers also feel it likely to indicate hypocrisy at the company concerning other ethical issues as well. These knocks include the more general phenomenon called “causewashing,” where companies put up a façade of sympathetic labor practices, community involvement, ethical dealings with vendors, humane treatment of animals and more.
In light of this, businesses will benefit from knowing what these values held by millennial customers entail. Here's a rundown.
1. They believe company values should go beyond corporate self-interest. In general, millennials disagree with the notion that a business’s only responsibilities are to its shareholders and to watching the bottom line, according to studies cited by Van den Bergh and Behrer. Millennials’ faith in the free market sank in 2008 with the stock market, housing prices, their parents’ retirement funds and their own employment prospects. Far from supporting an “it’s all about the bottom line” philosophy of business, their ethos is closer to something like the “triple bottom-line” equation that
2. They support workers’ rights. According to Pew, 78% of millennials agree with the statement, “Labor unions are needed to protect the rights and economic well-being of workers.” Unions or not, they strongly support the idea that companies should treat employees well and pay them fairly.
3. They want to protect the environment. Millennials harbor a deep-seated support for environmentally friendly action. This is something the millennial generation has believed in since childhood and that shows no sign of slowing down, perhaps in part because this is the first generation to grow up with an overwhelming scientific consensus pointing to manmade climate change.
4. They believe, by and large, that the role of government is to help, agreeing more than older generations with the sentiment “Government should do more to solve problems,” according to Pew. In one example of this inclination, polls have shown that 80% of millennials support universal healthcare in the U.S.
5. They’re tolerant. Pew surveys consistently demonstrate that this generation is more supportive of minorities on issues of race, more tolerant of interracial dating, more supportive of gay marriage, more in favor of unmarried adults cohabitating, more approving of mothers working who have young children, and more likely by far to have a close gay friend than do members of older generations.
6. They support diversity. From Pew again: Almost twice the percentage of millennials agree with the statement that “we should make every possible effort to improve the position of blacks and other minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment” than do members of previous generations. On the issue of immigration, only one-third of millennials agree with the statement that “immigrants threaten American values and customs.”
Note: Millennials’ support for diversity is no doubt affected by how diverse this generation is itself. Millennials are by far the most varied cohort in U.S. generational history. If you were looking to generalize Boomers or the Silent Generation in the U.S., a good guess would be “they’re all white.” You’d be wrong, but not by all that much. Ninety percent of the Silent Generation is white (80% are non-Hispanic white), and even among Boomers, 73% are non-Hispanic white. The makeup of the millennial generation is far different. Only 61% of millennials are non-Hispanic whites (this percentage is similar to that in the smaller Gen X), and millennials are more likely than any generation since the Silent Generation to be the children of immigrants. (All figures here are from Pew research.) Even these numbers don’t fully demonstrate the impact of this diversity. Take note that these “minorities” (hardly the right term) are far from evenly dispersed across the country, and are disproportionately represented in cities. In metropolises of significant size around the country, “minority” (Hispanic, Asian-American and African American ) groups together make up the majority.
This diversity is well represented in purchasing decisions. Among the all-important business traveler segment, there are 60% more Hispanics, double the number of Asian-Americans, and 40% more women in the millennial generation traveling for business by plane than there are among nonmillennial business fliers, according to
Think this stuff doesn't matter, or that it can be faked? Think again: One millennial I interviewed told me, “People my age are especially attuned to and adept at figuring out if a company is being pro-people or pro-environment in its marketing, and anti-people or anti-environment in its actions.” You know what? I believe her–and so should you, if you want the soon to be all-powerful millennial generation as customers, loyalists, and ambassadors for your company.
Micah Solomon is a customer service consultant, customer experience speaker and bestselling business author, most recently of High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service
