While reading a book over the last week about Generation Y – aka Millenials – there was a lot of information about this particular age group and their loyalty to everything from the favorite household brands they used to their loyalty to a career and a particular employer. While this is the most digitally savvy and information based generation ever to walk the earth, they are far more interested in looking out for number one and making the best decision that benefits them.
There was a ton of good information in this book, but the one phrase that jumped out to me and then took my mind down a rabbit hole was where the author wrote: “Gen Y has to be loyal to their employer before they will be loyal to the client that their employer services.” What a profound statement, yet so simple in nature and meaning. A person of Gen Y needs to feel compelled to the company and the mission at hand before they can really commit mentally to what they are doing or accomplishing.
Then, my mind wandered over to thinking not about our employees, but about our clients. Because, with a few exceptions, there are none of our clients who are “Gen Y.” Most are all baby boomers with some “Gen X” sprinkled into the mix. I think the same is true about these generations in present day as it turns to loyalty as I think deeply about my own business. This has always been a “what have you done for me lately business” of automotive marketing, but it seems now that the shreds of loyalty that used to exist in a lot of long-term, tenured clients is gone and that you are only as good as your last phone call and last month’s performance.
It really begs me to ask the question: does loyalty exist anymore in the manner that it used to? And, why does it seem so difficult to create a culture of loyalty among a client base? There used to be loyalty to your family, loyalty to your friends, faith and all things important to you, but it seems that there is a drift occurring right now in the present day that makes loyalty seem a little bit like a thing of the past.