Digitalizing your customer journey, how to adapt your events business to meet Gen Z’s expectations
There’s much more to Gen Z than their love for short, funny video clips. And they’re definitely not the only people obsessed with mobile devices.
Instead of poking fun at ‘those youngsters,’ it would do many businesses good to examine and understand their wants and needs.
For example, think about Gen Z’s characteristic desire for convenience, personalization and their focus on everything digital. How might that impact your events business in the future?
And how can you adapt your processes to cater to these expectations?
Who is Generation Z and what’s so different about them?
People born a few years before or after the year 2000 belong to Generation Z, or Gen Z for short. They’re the first generation to grow up as so-called digital natives. Personal electronic devices and the internet have been part of their lives since early childhood.
Consequently, Gen Z has always been surrounded by the wealth of easily accessible information the internet provides. Contrary to what some may believe, this has made them develop a high level of skepticism. This holds especially true for marketing promises. That’s why Gen Zers will carefully check vendors’ claims and evaluate reviews when they make buying decisions.
Another interesting fact about this generation is that they expect the online world’s easy access to information and its seamless experiences in all areas of life. For them, these elements are crucial for a smooth and enjoyable customer journey. If you can’t offer this, you risk losing their business.
This may not sound too pressing to you. After all, the oldest members of Gen Z are just starting to enter the job market and are usually not decision-makers yet. But they will be soon. And what’s even more important: aspects like a well-designed client experience are quickly becoming more important to older generations as well. This means now is the best time to adapt and rethink your customer journey and experience.
‘Guest experience’ and ‘guest journey’ – how these buzzwords go together
Before we get into ways to optimize your guest experience and journey, let’s look at what they are and how they relate to each other. Your guest experience refers to the entirety of experiences people have with your brand and service. This includes everything that happens from the moment they find out about your property until after their stay or the event.
The customer journey describes the various stages a client goes through before, during and after their booking decision. When speaking of events, this encompasses everything from their venue research and sending the RFP, to hosting the event and post-event communication. The optimal customer journey is straightforward and easy for the client to go through. As the service provider, it’s your job to create this smooth journey. And the better you manage to do that, the more positive your client’s overall experience will be.
How to adapt your customer journey to a new generation of decision-makers
If you’re looking for ways to optimize your customer journey, digitalization should be high up on your priority list. Simply switching from paper to PDF proposals isn’t enough anymore though.
Here are three ideas to adapt your RFP process to create a smoother guest journey and offer the seamless customer experience your guests expect today.
Create and send offers in a mobile-first format
With an adoption rate of 93%, smartphones are the most widely used device for communication among younger generations. And older generations are catching up to this figure quickly. That’s why everything you send must be viewable on a mobile device.
Further boost convenience for your clients by making proposals and other files accessible online instead of via download. This increases the chance that recipients open, read and share your offer. You can do this easily with modern proposal platforms that are specialized on mobile-first.
This approach has another valuable benefit for you: it creates new opportunities to track engagement and collect data, which you can use to optimize your offers.
Focus on convenience
Creating proposals that work well on mobile devices is a big plus in terms of convenience. Now your clients can pull them up and check them anywhere, be it at the office or on the go.
Make things even more practical by moving from static to interactive proposals. This lets your guests update attendee counts, pick menu options or go for an upsell directly within the proposal. Since you can see the updates live in the proposal platform, everyone saves time on back-and-forth emails. It also gives you the chance to allow for guest-led customization.
Finally, implement interactive online proposals with e-signing capabilities. That eliminates the need for printing, signing, scanning and returning contracts. Instead, your guests can review and approve a proposal from any device within minutes.
Make it visually appealing
New research shows that Gen Z’s attention span is down to 8 seconds on average. This leaves you less time to draw in your potential guest. Consequently, it’s becoming even more important to leverage visually appealing content to make a lasting impression.
If possible, start your proposal off strong with a feature video. If your system doesn’t allow for this, include an evocative leader image that showcases your venue’s USP. Include appealing pictures throughout the rest of your proposal as well. The goal is to present your offer in the best light and help guests visualize their event at your venue.
Finally, a clear, concise structure is also important in the age of short attention spans. Make your pitch easy to scan and keep product and service descriptions short, with a focus on the value you provide. This helps your reader quickly understand what you offer and how you stand out from the competition.
Now that you have some new ideas on how to streamline your guest journey, it’s time to get to work. Pick the steps you can implement most easily and get started with them to quickly see results. The sooner you adapt to future generations’ buying behavior, the further ahead of the competition you’ll be.
For an extra leg up and the ultimately streamlined RFP process, look into proposal management systems like Proposales. It’s the easiest way to wow your guests from the first moment they engage with your business.
Don’t believe it? Then see it for yourself in a free, no-strings-attached demo!
