I think half the battle is that we've told service staff for a long time how shit they are, how they should be doing better, how they're not worth much because they are in customer service, how it's a dead end job that will never go anywhere.
There's no respect for the roles even when done well, a lot of the time not even common courteously for a fellow human being. That what they do isn't important, that there's very little value attached to it.
But obviously it's important because of the absolute outrage when people don't get the service they feel they deserve - which in turn, when on the recieving end of that outrage, puts people off working in the sector all together. The mental health toll of being treated like that every day is dismissed as people needing a thicker skin.
And the reactions by some when something doesn't go the way they want it is massively over the top. Is it really a life altering, earth shattering event if your meal takes 10 minutes longer than the time frame you thought up in your head as reasonable, to arrive?
And everyone has different expectations, but more and more the staff delivering are expected to guess those expectations and admonished and told its poor service when they don't get it 100% right all the time based on a few seconds interaction with someone they've never met before.
In the example @LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet gave, they have an issue with being called 'Madam', logically thinking, how is the person serving supposed to know that? It's an accepted and respectful term to address someone who you have a few moments contact with where you don't expect introductions, and to me perfectly acceptable, I don't have an issue with being called it, although I respect that someone else might and that Lydia does and has every right to make that choice for herself, but why is the guy serving in the wrong for not guessing that in the few moments interaction with her? How can that be poor customer service? If asked not to and continued then yes, maybe, but to take such issue with it seems to me to do so just for the sake of something to complain about or 'add' to the actual issues being experienced.
Service is suffering in many places because there's not enough people to provide it and companies are making it worse, not better by promising the moon on a stick to customers but not providing the resources to meet that promise. Customers in turn take that out on the staff in front of them, especially those who have decided that 'The customer is always right' actually means 'The staff are always wrong' - no matter what has happened.
I don't know what the answer is, but at the moment from what I can see neither many customers nor those serving them are happy with how things are, maybe adjustments in expectations, treatment and attitude are needed on both sides to make things work.