Customer service

In days of old when I had a propa job with a salary, exes and perks I used to run an engineering business which was part of a large group. To keep supply and demand in the correct proportions it was necessary at times to sub contract a lot of work. This was usually done by specialist companies with highly skilled workforce. I would visit these suppliers regularly to keep up to date with what was happening within the sector and because our competitors used these same suppliers to understand what the market was like. It only took the loss of a couple of skilled workers to change the picture in some cases. The company could go from a reliable quality supplier to a lame duck in a very short period of time. I could tell almost as soon as I set foot inside the factory what was going on. They also knew me well and I almost always got a warm welcome. A valued customer who they looked after. Nowadays I see this same change in stores that I use regularly. We have a small office supplies store at the Scot Arms usually they are very helpful and go out of their way to look after their customers. The misses and I recently went into the store at the same time but for different items when we came out we both commented how unhelpful they were. I thought very little of this, dismissing it has having a bad day until another friend quite without prompting made a similar observation. I wonder what is going on here? As anyone else had a similar experience with this company. Locals will know the shop so I need not name here.