Millennials
want to use their smartphones for pretty much everything, and they’re starting
to look askance at any organization that doesn’t accommodate their mobile
needs.
According
to a new survey from research company Zogby Analytics and image software
provider Mitek, more than a third of millennials have already made a purchase
or selected a brand on the basis of the company’s mobile capabilities and
almost half interact daily with at least one retail mobile site.
Most
respondents indicated retailers ought to offer robust mobile-commerce apps to
their customers. About 42% are still willing to shop with retailers that
don’t provide an app or mobile-optimized site “but they are likely to
complain and feel negatively about it,” said a Mobile Marketer report on the survey. “Fourteen percent claim to
avoid businesses that do not offer mobile capability.”
Millennials,
the age group dominating college and university enrollment at present, also
feel they should be able to use their smartphones’ image-capturing technology
to auto-populate electronic forms, such as registering for classes or signing
up for an online store’s membership program.
“Institutions
must adopt a new way of communicating and interacting or they will be left
behind,” said Jim Debello, CEO of Mitek.
