Where did customer service go?

To put it bluntly, the reason that customer service is in decline is because the average customer is in decline.

Watch how the average customer treats the average sales person. You can only be abused so long... Now that doesn't mean this isn't a negative feedback loop...with many causes, and symptoms.

I am a firm believer that most people are inherently good. They are. However, when we aren't actively thinking about it, "as customers" we can be downright nasty, rude, etc.

Retail employees are generally abused, not well paid, given what can only called crap hours, and generally dis-incentived from providing good customer service.

From a very micro level. In a single man store, a customer is the owners paycheck. It's as simple as that. Every customer is the owners next meal, therefore customer service is great. "Ownership" is a real thing. Each employee past that is being "paid to care." They don't have the same level of ownership that the real owner does, but their paycheck, and their next meal is supposed to be close to it.

If the hassle they go through is greater than the reward they receive... the "paid to care" equation doesn't balance out, and customer service fails.

Just my 2 cents....Unfortunately Customer Service has been out-sourced to countries outside of the U.S. For 2 reasons: 1) Cost of labor, and 2) Few want to work in the customer service business in the U.S. (It's a thankless job that doesn't pay well).
The sad part of it, companies don't realize how much business they lose due to poor service. The other sad piece is that many companies have become too big and have lost control of the customer picture.

I was a Finance Commander once, and I told the Detachment we will give world class service, because we don't know if they will ever come back from a deployment. I was very proud of the soldiers for smiling and saying, "How can I help you?"