Where has Customer Service gone?

Old fashion customer service simple does not exist.  Gone are the days that employees of company's don't complain about doing their job.  


There are a few reasons why I think this has happened.  


1)Employee Loyalty: Company's don't value their employees anymore.  Your a number and not a name and when it comes down to it, that really piss's employees off.  Yes they are happy to have a job and if you would stop telling us that we are lucky to have a job and realize that the company is lucky to have employees, everyone could get back to working and not worry that tomorrow you will be replaced with a younger, cheaper version of you.  Job security is important not only to employees it should be important to company's too!


2) Laziness: Nothing make me more up set then when I call a company and the person on the other end of the phone tells you that they will actually have to do their job in order to help you and that they are now upset because you asked a question that requires them to actually work.  I think this attitude is caused by point #1 Employee Loyalty.  If employees are not happy with their job they are less then willing to work, which in return causes point # 2 Laziness.


3) Email/Social Media replaces Human Interaction: It has become way to easy for people to communicate without actually picking up the phone or traveling to the company location to discuss their problem.  In some ways its a good thing in other ways it really has dis-faced the Customer Service industry.   In fact I think some people don't answer their phone because it is way easier for you to communicate some other way.  I agree with that on some levels. 


When I want to tell my husband that he has to pick up our son.  Its much easier to just text him then to make that phone call.  The text takes 30 seconds and the phone call would take 5 minutes.  


But when it come to answering the phone at your job and you have to interact with that person on the other end. It seems like if you actually get a person on the other end you are treated poorly.  Because you actually took the time to call the company and want them to help you with the problem you are having because of their company.  Its like they are offended before you even tell them what the problem is.  


Take for example I called the City of Minneapolis to get an address for a residence that we pulled a permit at. All that I have is the date that the credit card was charged and the amount that was charged.  First I call and I can't talk to anyone.  I have to leave a message to have someone call me back.  The person on the other end tells me that I will get a call back in 3 days.  WOW! After 3 days I get a real person to call me back and I tell them that what I need is the address of where the permit was issued to because I need to job cost the permits. I tell her why I need this is because the actual permit never makes it back to the office.  She tells me that all that information is on the website.  I tell her that I have already looked there but the items that I am looking for I can not find because I don't have the actual permit number and most times the permit is not pulled in our name. Then she tells me that  I need to tell the plumbers to make sure they bring back a copy of the permit because she would actually have to look up that information.  HELLO is that not what I called you for in the first place, to actually do your job?  WOW! So I give her all the information and she says well I will have to call you back.  This may take up to a week to do.  WOW AGAIN!  I know for a fact that it does not take that long because this is not the first time I have called to get this information.  When I actually get someone on the other end that is not  1)Employee Loyalty , 2) Laziness and 3) Email/Social Media replaces Human Interaction  it takes about 3 minutes to look that information up.   


So what do you think?  Do you agree with me that Old Fashioned Customers Service is a thing of the past?