Posted on 12/20/2007 9:49:15 AM PST by Cecily
If you're over 50, you've probably had this experience: You're standing at a checkout counter, ready to pay, and the twentysomething behind the register is talking on her cell phone. So you wait, and wait, and wait, and when the clerk finally finishes her conversation, she offers not an apology, but a grimace that suggests you've interrupted.
Sound familiar? It has a name: the Service Gap.
That's not a hip clothing store for soldiers. Or a new motto for the London subway system.
It's business-speak to describe a phenomenon fueling plenty of holiday-shopping frustration: the difference in how baby boomers and members of the "millennial generation" define the concept of customer service.
"There's a tremendous culture and value gap," said William Withers, a communications professor at Wartburg College in Iowa who, with his colleague Patrick Langan, has spent years studying customer service.
It's not that those in their teens or 20s are lazy or mean. Or that boomers are getting crotchety as they age. It's that both groups have far different social experiences and expectations, and demographics tend to put boomers in the checkout line and millennials behind the counter.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Simple solution; shop online! I don’t go to “stores” and malls any more. They suck, the people suck, the crowds suck, the parking lots suck. It all sucks!
Boomers didn’t think that raising their Screamers to have manners mattered.
What goes around, comes around!
HAH!
I just smile at these types and say, “Gee you’re lucky”. When they respond with, “What do you mean, lucky?” I reply, “You’re lucky you don’t work for me because I’d fire your a$$.”
I like shopping online but really have a hard time justifying the outrageous “shipping and handling” charges they tack on to the price.
Now every clerk in the stored has a headset and is chattering with their coworkers when they aren’t on the cell phone.
Its not a ‘culture gap’.
Its a failure of managers in retail shops of various types.
A whole generation brought up to think that the world owes them a living.
I remember when I was little, it was a common expression, probably born in the Great Depression, “Listen, kid, the world doesn’t owe you a living!”
Actually, I see people my age (40somethings) doing the same
There is a lack of customer service from many businesses today...and its because many large coporations have zero emphasis on service.
Next time you are on the phone talking to Maneeshwar from customer service dept...and see what I mean
Even weird, there is more commitment to customer service from govt agencies today than most businesses
Hello kindred spirit! I hope I never experience the cell phone thing in a store. I’m not a confrontational person but I know I wouldn’t hold back on that one.
I have left my whole order on the counter and walked out.letting the manager on the way out know why.
“outrageous “shipping and handling” charges they tack on to the price.”
Agreed, especially the graduated shipping schemes they use.
Why should they act any differently? The look up to rude celebrities who have lots of money; they probably get easy money from their parents regardless of their manners or job performance; the older customers are just old “nobodies” like their parents, and therefore they are entitled to treat them rudely!
I am more annoyed by the person over 50 that is ahead of me in line and writes a check for their groceries.
You would think it was still 1972.
This takes the cake:
I was sitting at a restaurant bar and when I was ready to order the two girls tending bar were busy chatting with each other. Using my ‘outmoded’ set of manners, I waited patiently for a break in their conversation. Only to be told I should have just interrupted them, and that it was ‘creepy’ for me to try to make eye contact and wait for a pause in their conversation.
Grouping people into generations is a modern and acceptable way to be prejudiced.
Scooter2, well put. Thx.
There are idiots of all ages with cellphones. And who are all of these under-ten-year-olds talking to? How do they pay the monthly charges?
Lately though I see adults over 40 who hold the phone in their right hand while holding it to their left ear as they walk or DRIVE!!!
I would just be happy if the idiot woman behind me would stop taking calls on her cell phone while we are waiting in line. I don’t need to hear about her scheduling problems with her kids or the reasons that her girl friends are unhappy in life.
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