Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a thought leader session at CUNAs America's Credit Union Conference & Expo in New York City on generational differences.
During the session, author and Johnson Training Group partner Meagan Johnson asked the audience to create a list of words that described someone in Generation Y. I listened as the audience described my generation as tech savvy, lazy, irresponsible, lacking in communications skills and respect and impulsive. Johnson then made what I thought was a great point. She displayed a list of similar characteristics and then showed that this was a list taken from a 1968 Time magazine article describing the baby boom generation.
Johnson's point that each new generation that comes up is just as new, inexperienced and youthful as the one before it made me start to take a look at the generation that is coming up behind me.
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While credit unions are busy focusing on trying to figure out how to target Gen Y, we're already becoming old news. There's a new generation (Gen Z) creeping up behind us that is more tech savvy, has poorer communications skills and is going to be even harder to target for credit unions.
My 14-year-old cousin has an iPhone. When I was 14, you were the cool kid in class if you had the brightest colored beeper. We tease my cousin that he's a vampire because he lives in the basement playing video games and never sees the light of day. He doesn't even need to leave the basement to hang out and play the game with his friends; all he has to do is stick on a headset and connect online.
For most of Gen Y, technology like instant messenger, iPods and advanced video games came in our teenage years. The generation coming up behind us has had that technology since birth.
Credit unions are so preoccupied with targeting Gen Y that what many of you fail to realize is that just like we're teaching you about technology, the next young generation is teaching us. While online banking, mobile banking and no ATM fees may meet some of the needs of Gen Y, you can't just stop there. You need to be constantly looking for the latest technology and latest trends. Meeting the needs of Gen Y and the generation behind us is going to be a constant battle because we have grown up with technology that is being constantly updated.
While focusing on gaining Gen Y as members will work for your credit union now, the generation behind us is growing up into kids who will start part-time jobs and go off to college and become potential members. If you focus just on Gen Y, you are going to be outdated and unprepared to serve the advanced needs of these members. Start working with them now, observe them and their behaviors and find out their needs so that you are ready for them.
Gen Y is the present, you have to look beyond us if you want to be serving the future.
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