When I was a kid, good service meant that you walked into a place and somebody smiled, greeted you, talked to you, and helped you through the process of purchasing or deciding what you wanted. Maybe they even did a little something extra, like carrying your bags to the car or wrapping something for you free of charge because, hey, they wanted your business.
The people working there had in-depth knowledge of the products they sold or the skills they provided. You felt confident that you were going to get exactly what you wanted. Customization and talking through decisions were expected.
“Service with a smile,” as they used to say.
“The customer is always right.”
Those little things helped small businesses and even major corporations succeed and gain loyal customers. It was something we all understood.
More and more, my friends and I find ourselves asking the same question: What the hell happened to service?
We Don’t Get Service Anymore
Maybe this is another lament from a middle-aged man, but it is a common theme among my friends in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Service is not the same.
Customer-service calls have been exported to call centers. You press one for English and two for Español. Then you hear the familiar recording: “Please listen carefully because our menu options have recently changed.”
You spend the next five minutes trying to determine whether you should press four for sales, five for office hours, or repeatedly smash zero while screaming, “Representative,” into your phone.
Then there is restaurant service. A 20% tip used to represent great service that exceeded expectations. Now, 20% feels like the standard, almost mandatory amount because we have been guilted into accepting that this is simply how workers get paid.
You do not even need to receive actual service anymore. Someone spins a computer screen around and passively says, “The screen is going to ask you a few questions,” as if neither of you knows what the question will be.
Money, please.
The strange part is that this may be one of the only times you will hear me say this with “complete confidence:” I may be getting old.
And I am starting to wonder whether the idea of good service has fundamentally changed.
