“We’re reaching a critical point demographically where baby boomers will make up roughly 47 percent of the total U.S. population and hold about 65 percent of the disposable income,” said Dr. Bill Withers, a communications professor at the college. This means baby boomers will be doing most of the nation’s shopping, while Gen-Y workers will be waiting on them.

That’s a problem, Withers said, because baby boomers have a completely different concept of how retail employees should treat customers than Gen-Y workers.

“People born between 1980 and 1996 are coming out of far different family dynamics—many single-parent homes, many double-working parents, pervasive technology use, et cetera,” Withers said. Therefore, the new generation of service workers “struggles to make connections with customers and meet their service expectations.”

Making the problem even worse, many businesses simply do not have the time or the resources to offer as much customer service training as they would like.

According to a 2005 study by Withers and Dr. Patrick Langan, a professor of business administration at Wartburg, 78 percent of companies surveyed said they provide “some” customer service training, and 68 percent would provide more if they had the means.

Withers believes “awareness and training” are the keys to heading off the looming customer service crisis.

“I also recommend looking to retirees as a possible service workforce, thereby bridging the gap,” he said. “Some McDonald’s restaurants, for example, routinely place retirees in their drive-ups now to avoid dealing with quirky youth-workers who just don’t get it.” [February 2007 PET AGE]