Barron’s headlined last year, “Customer Service is in Decline.” The Wall Street Journal reported that customer experience is worsening. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, “Customer satisfaction is at its lowest level for 17 years”
This is what I can attest to, and I’m certain you can too.
My seven-year old son and I went to the local sporting goods shop a few weeks back to purchase new baseball cleats. We walked over to the section for athletic shoes and not one employee was visible. Instead, we found a kiosk. The kiosk allows you to input your preferences, including shoe size, brand, and color, and then asks for the shoes to be delivered. We finally found the right shoe after many failed attempts (many brands did not have anything in my son’s size). The kiosk announced, “Someone will soon be with you!” before returning to the home screen.
A worker appeared five minutes later and said that he couldn’t find the right size. He brought one size smaller than before and quickly disappeared. Evidently, neither one of these cleat sizes fitted. Is there not someone who could tell us which brands are available in the size of my son? I saw a pair of kids’ cleats on the ground, left out in a box. They fit my son well so we went to the cash register to get them.
This is not how I remember buying athletic shoes as a child.
My parents took me to the shoe store with them. They were eager and available to help us determine our shoe size. They would measure me (my narrow heel was always an issue) and offer my parents several options. Every time we walked out, we felt satisfied with our purchase.
Those days are gone. Similar experiences are common in caring for customers. A cross-country flight made me realize that I could not purchase a meal or a beer because the airline only accepts payment via their app. Unfortunately, this app was unavailable once I was in the air. Do businesses want me to stop buying their services?
Charlene Walters, Forbes, blames the problem on a decline in human interaction that started during the pandemic as well as staffing shortages. This is likely true, judging by the two examples I have cited above. Customers get the illusion of receiving the same customer service as they have come to expect. However, digital technology allows companies to reduce costs and staff. The technology can sometimes fail. On my cross-country return flight, the WiFi service on the plane was down for the majority of my trip. This is not the best way to watch movies or TV programs on your own handheld device.
This trend toward a digitally impersonalized, faceless economy was accelerated by the pandemic and its “contactless payments”, which allow us to not touch, smell, or touch any of their personal items. Forbes commented on the downward trend in customer services years before Covid-19. A 2019 article by Forbes noted that there was a “stability decline” in customer service across the United States. Forrester also featured a 2017 interview entitled “The Decline of Consumer Trust and What to Do About It.”
My speculation is that there may be something else to the decline in customer service: A concomitant decline in a strong middle class.
The middle class has seen a significant contraction over the past half-century. This trend seems likely to continue in light of our ever more fragile economy. In fact, Americans have a purchasing power that is almost equal to what it was in mid-1960s. Inflation and higher interest rates have cost the average American $4,200 annually.
There is a connection between a declining customer service and a contracting middle-class. People who live in healthy, vibrant communities expect prompt, professional treatment from companies that want their money. These businesses must compete for customers who are looking for a quality product and can take their business elsewhere. These middle-class shoppers may lodge complaints about customer service and have the potential to impact business decisions.
Businesses are less inclined to make changes in a society with a small or non-existent middle class. Only the wealthy will be able to shop at businesses that employ people who care about their customers and avoid complaints.
Some of the poorest customer services are found in countries that have a large gap between the haves (India, Vietnam, and Indonesia). You could also include countries like Nigeria, Algeria, Venezuela, the Philippines and Algeria that are known to be bad for business. Thailand, where I lived for three-years, is a country that has a reputation for having poor customer service. I tried to order take-out by phone but a cashier yelled at me and said they were “too busy.” It is difficult to make complaints about such rude behavior. Everyone smiles.
Thailand is known for its high income inequality. The royal family is home to an extremely wealthy upper class. There is also a small merchant middle class in Bangkok, with a smaller number in Chiang Mai. A large section of the poor Thais and other Asian migrants are part of the underclass. If you are a Thai or expat and encounter poor service in a restaurant, shop, or other establishment, there is no recourse. It’s your decision, ka. Thai businesses tell their customers implicitly.
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Another aspect of the relationship between shrinking middle class, declining customer service, and declining customer satisfaction is that a globalized economy, which prioritizes the low cost of goods, tends to produce inferior products. Cheap goods are produced by low-wage labor. Many of the items we have in our homes were not made by middle-class fathers of three in Youngstown (Ohio), Bakersfield (California), or any other post-war, Marshall Plan-rehabilitated town in Western Europe. These products are actually made by an immigrant in a foreign factory whose name is not easily pronounce.
These products are not sold in your locality. They are also not sold by people you know from PTA or church. Many of these products are sold to you through an anonymous, huge, online giant such as Amazon. This rating system clearly benefits large corporations with offshore labor, who can then fix it to benefit their mass-produced, foreign made products. You could spend hours writing negative reviews about these products. It won’t matter.
It is unlikely that customer service will improve as technology becomes more important in our society. We have grown accustomed to poor service because we are so isolated from each other and the businesses that we depend on. It’s all about efficiency. Even if the products are sub-par or ones that we scan ourselves, while an employee is more invested in his phone than you shopping.
