WESTLAKE, Calif. -

Dealerships of all sizes are trying a wide array of strategies to reach millennials — individuals born between 1982 and 1994 — in order to keep vehicles turning and service bays humming.

J.D. Power recently released what analysts titled the Millennials Insight Report: The Customer Experience Perspective; a report aimed at defining the quintessential makeup and customer experience preferences of millennials

The following five points are a sampling of the report’s highlights:

• Millennials are not as fickle or anti-establishment as you think: Overall, across the 15 industries studied, millennials are generally more satisfied consumers (5 points higher, on average, on a 1,000-point scale) than Boomers (born 1946-1964). The difference is most prominent in the utilities (plus 37 points), healthcare (plus 28 points) and telecom (plus 13 points) industries.

• Customer Service Is critical to millennial loyalty: Millennials have the lowest tolerance for errors and delays of any other generation studied — they simply expect things to work. However, when there is a problem and it is resolved fully, millennials are substantially more likely than Boomers to reuse a product or service.

• Value for money is king: The secret to millennial satisfaction? It’s value for money. Unlike other generations that tend to buy things for status, image or brand loyalty, millennials are most likely to make a purchase decision based on value for money — across virtually every product category.

• Privacy: What’s in it for me? Millennials are less concerned than other generations about privacy.  They accept the erosion of privacy as inevitable and are generally willing to have their information collected if it comes with benefits in the form of targeted offers and personalized services.

• Optimism abounds: Despite having lower accumulated wealth, less income and higher debt than other generations, Millennials are much more optimistic about the economy and their own personal financial outlook.

“Our studies indicate that millennials are different from previous generations; however, it’s really the nuances of the customer experience that set them apart from the rest,” said Keith Webster, senior vice president and general manager of service industries Americas at J.D. Power.

“And it’s those nuances that are so critical for business leaders to know right now as they wrestle with the challenge of anticipating customer demand in an incredibly fast-moving marketplace where getting it wrong can have catastrophic effects,” Webster continued.

“We believe this research helps to demystify the millennial generation by offering concrete data on their real-world consumer interactions,” he went on to say.

By digging deeper than ever before into the millennial customer experience, J.D. Power believes the Millennials Insight Report can deliver a detailed look into the hearts and minds of this “chronically misunderstood” generation.

For companies that want their brand promises to resonate with millennials, J.D. Power stressed that understanding the subtleties and nuances that both differentiate and connect this generation with others — as well as providing products and services that cater to their individual requirements — is essential.

Considered the most comprehensive report on millennials to date, J.D. Power highlighted the inaugural report is based on in-depth proprietary benchmark research, analyses and insights gleaned from more than 600,000 consumer responses (126,315 from millennial consumers) and interviews with verified customers derived from nearly two dozen J.D. Power syndicated studies conducted in 2015 in the United States.

“So much has been written about millennials, yet much of the information provided is just one very small slice of their total makeup and is often limited to just one industry,” said Jay Meyers, vice president for the analytical center of excellence division at J.D. Power. “The Millennials Insight Report is a one-of-a-kind analysis providing a 360 degree perspective and showing that the millennial generation is a heterogeneous group that is simultaneously very different from and — in some ways — very similar to other generations of U.S. consumers.

“For businesses catering to this generation, the insights uncovered in our report provide a starting point for understanding the nuanced approach required to build real, lasting engagement,” Meyers went on to say.

The full report contains a wide range of data points and analyses that capture millennials’ voice of the customer experience, covering such business segments as automotive, banking, credit card, hotel, wireless, investments, primary mortgage and health insurance, as well as Internet and media usage.

For more information about the Millennials Insight Report: The Customer Experience Perspective, visit http://www.jdpower.com/millennials.