Marketing research and insights news and information. This issue's keywords: smartphone shopping; coupons; Millennial car buyers; contact centers; Millennial moms
A new analysis by car-buying platform Edmunds.com shows Millennial car buyers lease their vehicles at a higher rate than the overall car-buying population, suggesting Millennials (age 18-34) are more willing to sacrifice long-term financial benefits of car ownership in return for more luxurious vehicles that are more affordable through leasing. The data show leasing has accounted for 28.9 percent of all new car purchases by Millennials in 2015, exceeding the industry-wide lease rate of 26.7 percent and reflecting a 46 percent increase in leasing by Millennials over the last five years. The share of leasing among all car shoppers increased 41.7 percent during that same time period.
Although 70 percent of U.K. shoppers own a smartphone, only 30 percent have used their smartphone to shop in the past month, shows a study out of U.K. shopper research firm Shoppercentric. Additionally, the study shows the use of a smartphone as part of the shopping process has only increased 9 percent in the past two years despite significant growth in the mobile-enabled Web sites and apps. One-in-three smartphone owners surveyed have shopped using an app but only one in 10 regularly use apps as part of the purchasing process and more than twice as many shoppers use a Web site on their smartphone while in-store rather than using an app. Of those that do use their smartphone in stores, 47 percent use it to share ideas, 29 percent compare prices and 20 percent use them for product information. However, 50 percent of U.K. shoppers say they couldn't see a benefit in using a smartphone in-store and 27 percent said it was too much effort. Twenty-three percent said they never thought of it and 22 percent cited the lack of free Wi-Fi.
Marketers are changing their coupon strategies by cutting the amount of coupons but increasing their value according to a report from Kantar Media. The number of coupons fell by 0.9 percent to over 156 billion for the first half of the year but the average face value increased 6.5 percent and the overall value rose 5.5 percent to $281 billion. Retailer promotion pages dropped 21.6 percent compared to the first half of 2014 with 11.4 billion pages running the first half of 2015. Though Walmart continues to rank first based on the number of pages circulated, the company saw a 24 percent reduction to more than 4 billion pages, representing the largest actual decrease among the top 10 retailers. Dollar General had the largest actual increase among the top 10 firms having doubled its pages circulated to over 1 billion pages.
Contact centers worldwide are often viewed as a "necessary evil," with organizations realizing they are vital to supporting customers but are still typically thought of as inefficient to the organization as a whole, according to a report by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), a Colorado Springs, Colo., professional service organization, and San Francisco customer service software firm Zendesk. The report shows more than 62 percent of contact centers are perceived as cost centers and only 27 percent are effectively measuring and reporting their service level. Sixty-two percent of contact centers measure their agents to ensure 90 percent of their time is fully utilized and 50 percent of contact centers do not measure their accuracy. Twenty-one percent do not currently have a formal method for measuring customer satisfaction and only 25 percent have ever considered a cross-selling or up-selling program.
A study by Norwalk, Conn., research agency The Family Room, along with FocusVision and Lightspeed GMI, has revealed changes in parent-child relationships in Millennial households, with many Millennial moms adding to the existing trend of the "buddy" culture between parents and their children. The statistics show that 46 percent of total parents (age 25-50) claim their child is "one of their best friends." Fifty-four percent of Millennial parents (age 25-35) hold this belief, as do 38 percent of Gen X parents (age 36-50).
These reports were compiled from recent issues of the Daily News Queue, a free e-newsletter digest of marketing research and insights news and information delivered each business morning. Not already in the Queue? Sign up here!