The new customer-supplier supply chain has been altered dramatically over the last few years. The "new economy" has had a great impact on the way we view the predictable ways of this once status quo-ish aspect of American business called customer service. With downsizing, rightsizing, reengineering and dreaded mergers and acquisition, not to mention the latest political hot potato called outsourcing, the new business landscapes have created a "new customer" - an emergent breed that seemed to have sprung from a yet undefined gene pool.
A recent customer service-training program conducted at the AT&T facility in Pleasanton, California provided a stark reality that not all those who produce a product or service understand who the real customer is. This unconscious incompetence - a take from Kilpatrick's learning model, for those familiar with teaching adults - offers a vivid picture that old line companies and even those who beat their breasts for being in the Fortune 500 ranks may rate woefully low in the customer service performance scale. AT&T workers, hopefully after learning what the true meaning customer is, thanks to the class, can now relish the notion that their customers transcend the traditional customer profile of one who simply has money to spend, one who is a whining, demanding outsider, and one who unreasonably needed the service yesterday.
Not a hop, skip, and jump away from AT&T's Pleasanton, campus is Wells Fargo Bank whose television commercials glamorize the traditionally personalized banking delivery service of the Pony Express of the 1800's. However, after leaving the bank it is not hard to feel as if you've stepped on something that makes you cringe and fume at the same time for dragging it into your living room. Populated with "newbies", they'd rather bet their lives on a linear, mechanistic, depersonalized treatment of their customers than venture out to the realm of the socially and relationally sane; that is, their customers' real world. They hide behind the lamest yet most common refrain of "it is the bank policy".
These two conditions underscore what is happening in the marketplace. Better yet, they exemplify what is NOT happening in the marketplace. Some organizations take the bull by the horn and lead the way. Others, however, are taken by the bull's horn and are led away.
The Evolving Breed Of CustomersThis begs the question: "Is customer service declining?" Or, "Are customers becoming better consumers?" The Sloan Management Review once published that customers want reliability (30%); responsiveness (20%); assurance (20%); empathy (16%); and tangibility (7%). This survey was published in 1991 but these demands are as true today as they were then. Knowing these statistics and underlying behavioral implications, why on earth then are we not able to render simple, quality service to those deserve it? Well, perhaps the best place to start - that is, if we are to find even a modicum sensible response - is to look at the changing formulations of the traditional face of the customer.
People buy products and services. These products and services in turn meet their idiosyncratic needs and wants. Also, people exhibit styles and tastes, and there are as many styles and tastes as there people. Purveyors of products and services, meanwhile fight tooth and nail to grab market share and brand positioning to help insure their survival in today's Darwinistic marketplace.
For starters, let's look at old people. Without sounding pejorative for the perfunctory use of the word "old", we know that they are the fastest growing population in America - and they have money to spend. It is no wonder drug companies like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Bayer/GSK makers of Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra respectively scramble to provide products for the aging male population. Factor in the advancement of medical technologies that help people live longer, we can only surmise that the growing senior population will need to be catered to for years to come.
Women meanwhile, play an ever-increasing role in today's economy. Faith Popcorn's website that highlights future trends has these to say: women purchase 75% of all over-the-counter drugs; they hold the household purse-strings and thus control 80% of all purchases in the household; in the last year alone, 50% of all personal computers were purchased by women and are now as Internet savvy as men; women-owned businesses are growing at an unprecedented speed with a forecast that by the year 2005, 40% of all businesses in America will be female-owned.
African American buying power has continually changed advertising and marketing strategies of image purveyors along Madison Avenue. Consider the following facts. African Americans are the largest ethnic segment in America and as their population continues to grow positive results emerge. An increasing number of African Americans are starting and expanding business resulting in gains in buying power. The Census Bureau also shows that the 25-29 year-old-group of blacks now completes their high school education equipping them with better credentials and skill sets needed to become competitive in the workplace and fill jobs that provide better wages. What's more astounding is the finding that they spend more of their disposable income than their white counterparts.
Asians buy rice, tofu, fish (heads, eyes, and all) and a whole lot more. The collectivist mindset also keeps them perpetually tied to relatives' hips in the old country for which they steadily purchase products that they send back home. For example, this practice has accounted for the continuous growth of Philippine-based enterprises like LBC and Alpha Cargo whose monetary backbones rest on Balikbayan box shipments to Manila and outlying provinces. Incidentally, US Census declares that they (Asians) are the fastest growing ethnic segment and have the highest average household incomes and level of education in the US thus securing further the market niche for companies that cater to the home country. Although Asians comprise a younger market than the general buying populace, they still do prefer to communicate and consume media channels in the native language. Case in point, this preference for the mother tongue has spurred the slow but gradual entry of ABS-CBN's The Filipino Channel into Filipino American homes. Notably, as well, Saigon Television captures the viewing time of Vietnamese communities up and down the state of California everyday at 6PM with metronome accuracy. Combined with their work ethic and the value they place on newfound opportunities, purveyors of products and services see them as a veritable goldmine.
Projected to be the largest ethnic segment in the US by 2005, the Hispanic population will be flexing its buying muscle to the tune of $460 billion and beyond. This emerging consumer powerhouse speaks the monolingual medium of Spanish. Given a few more years it wouldn't be a stretch to claim Univision as the "fifth network". Hispanics are also younger than its general market and ethnic counterparts. By far it has a young population who, for all intents and purposes, will be dependent on healthcare services like child and adult care. Furthermore, Hispanic females will reach 48.92 million in the year 2050 - about 25% of the total US female population. That's why when Hispanic-owned Molina Healthcare, Inc., went public, it snatched more than $115 million during its IPO - a testimony to the public's trust and confidence in a business model focused toward the health care concerns of the Hispanic market.
These are simple vignettes of the changing countenance of the consumer not only in the US market but also across the rapidly evolving global economic landscape.
So, Who Really Are These New Customers?White-Anglo Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and peoples of other national origin, ethnicity, and persuasion today wield a powerful spending stick that commands attention from even the most indifferent and economically self-assured enterprise. They are the new customers. They are the evolved kind transformed from the once staid and laconic state of substandard expectations. They come to the marketplace each day with greater and more sophisticated demands and ample money to spend. They have expected performance outcomes of customer service providers that far surpass the old ways of doing business. They want responses now and products delivered yesterday. These new customers are in town and they are here to stay. And this town as we once knew it is no longer a day's travel for them nor is it even an earth's spin away any longer. This town as we know it is merely a click of a mouse away.
To boot the new customers are smarter and more insistent than ever. These new customers in town are no longer beholden to the buying ties of the past. These new customers are both young and mature - what a dichotomy! But who are we to complain? The customer is king remember? And these new customers have funds. These new customers are also technology savvy; armed with the power of the Internet these new customers can travel great distances within the contiguous United States or leap across bodies of ocean to exercise a buying power that is second to none.
These new customers transcend physical and cultural barriers. Today, they may hail from Main Street, Chicago; tomorrow they may come knocking from the dirt streets of Sandakan, Borneo.
Behold the new customers, they're coming.
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