Is it me or is customer service in the western world declining? Here in England staff in the shops don't even acknowledge your existence. You pay for an item and they don't speak not even a thank you. I guess that's why people shop online.
Certain shops, especially the larger ones, I noticed that trend. Smaller businesses, however, are typically better when it comes to customer service, at least here.
On this side of the pond, I feel they talk too much at the cash register. The larger companies are increasingly asking if you want more: Do you want to apply for our credit card? Do you want a coffee or a lottery ticket? Do you want to donate again to the same charity you donated $10 to yesterday? Repeatedly I have to say no. No! I want to buy the things I brought to the register! If I wanted those other things, I would have brought them over here! I used to like going to the register, but now I find myself using self-checkout and pay at the pump increasingly more with time.
It really just depends on the person, I think. And also the mood and what kind of a day they've had. I used to work in a customer service type position, and some days I was super friendly and chatty and some days it was like "omg people stop talking to me please." I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, because I've worked in several jobs that have been terribly mismanaged and expected WAY too much of their employees, leaving basically no time or energy to deal with customers. Example... I used to work at a hotel, as a housekeeper. In order for us to have enough time to stock our carts and take our breaks, the most rooms we could really have to clean would be 15, and even that would be really pushing it. Very often we had 20+ rooms, which is basically impossible with the amount of time we are given. So when you're in that kind of a position and a customer asks you for help with something, it's easy to feel like "gah, no, I don't have time to help this person, but I have to because it's my job." I think perspective changes a lot when you've worked in a job like that yourself, because you can remember those days when you're just too stressed or out of it to be friendly. It's super tough to be friendly 24/7 when you also have a bunch of other responsibilities to worry about. That being said, though, I think there are also plenty of people who just don't care about being friendly and aren't very invested in doing a good job or making people feel welcome or whatever. They just want to go to work, make their money, and go home.
