I have no doubt that a good part of the issue relates to the changing demands on customer service people. A few years ago, there would be all sorts of queries, many of which were not examples of where things had gone wrong. This meant that the reps would spend a significant amount of time creating something good for the customer. With increased automation, I find nearly all my calls to customer service reps concern things which have gone wrong, so the rep's job first off is to placate and then solve, both of which are much more demanding.