Customer service is wide ranging, that aims to meet the needs of the customer. The customer is critical factor in any business. The customer service starts off at the initial point of entry into a shop or the initial meeting via telephone. The service ends upon exiting the shop, or once the customers transaction with the company is sucessfully completed. The level of customer service is widespread and varies from company to company.

Levels of customer service and the scope provided by a company is what is most challenging to employees of a business. It can be argued that with immigration of workers to western more developed countries the level of service has declined overall. The employees in certain companies and areas such as restaurants, pubs, cafes has fallen short in delighting the customer.

Gone are the days where the service was provided with an initial engaging smile, prompt delivery of the goods ordered. Steps are not taken frequently enough to communicate with the customer other than that of the product delivery and payment. I feel that some restaurants employ sub standard workers and employ them on poor levels of pay and this is where the problem begins. The wrong type of worker is simply given a task to extract as much money from the customer and the business in turn is doing the day to day business at the lowest cost possible by using cheaper staff.

Not that I am xenophobic in any way, though I feel that there is a more reactive and stale approach in providing basic services in many areas of retail and other service related industries. I feel that the employees do not go far enough in engaging with the customer in terms of offering warm greetings that make the customer feel valued enough. Many smaller service related issues such as the toilets might not be up to standard or meet the expectations of having a clean a fresh pleasant smelling toilet. From the display of goods at a restaurant, there have been so many visits I have made to restaurants, cafes and even departmental retail stores where the employee has simply asked me what I want to order and the process of service feels mechanical and not provided in a warm and keen manner. Too often this will devalue the customers own rating and image of that company that will ultimately at some stage result in the company itself losing out.

The days of excellent service across a number of industries has fallen. Making a reservation to a holiday company via the telephone these days involves

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