Customer service is getting worse—and so are customers

Rare is the company today that does not claim to be “customer-centric”. Anyone unfortunate enough to have sought assistance or redress from big business may quibble. Many interactions with customer service make you feel central only in the sense of being the prime target of corporate abuse. Such experiences grew especially maddening amid the staff shortages and supply-chain snarl-ups of the pandemic. But trouble has been brewing for some time. After rising steadily for two decades, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a barometer of contentment, began declining in 2018. Although it has edged up from its pandemic nadir, it has shed all of its gains since 2006.