Building Consumption Skills Through Teenage Empowerment: a Powerful and Invisible Determinant of Customer Relationships

Consumer empowerment digitizes word of mouth, arguably the most powerful and invisible determinant of customer relationships. Individuals in today’s young consumers can create collective voices that can rival the reach of commercial organizations, which have been accustomed to controlling information about their reputations, offerings and performances. In order to develop a better understanding of young consumers empowerment, who represent the most highly sought after market segment for researchers and marketing practitioners in France, it is important to explore teens’ competencies as consumers. Indeed, empowered young consumers can make enterprises more competitive because in many cases they are better qualified to help other young consumers to have better experiences than company employees are. This qualitative research explores the consumption skills of teenage consumers using the new technologies. By examining how teens aged 11-15 define a competent consumer and how they perceive themselves as competent consumers, we should be better able to understand the consumption behaviours they exhibit, the purchase decision they make and the limitations they feel they must overcome to become fully competent consumers. For many companies, empowering young customers to communicate the message will become a vital part of both brand value and customer relationships management (CRM).

Citation:

Wided Batat (2009) ,"Building Consumption Skills Through Teenage Empowerment: a Powerful and Invisible Determinant of Customer Relationships", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 535-536.