To be honest, I think there are two things at play here. 1.) There is a dying understanding of sales and public relations, which is why all too often you're seeing tradespeople undervalue that first impression. (They don't even understand why it's important!) And 2.) There is a dying sense of etiquette and customer service in the western world, which also leads to workers paying little attention to how one conducts himself with customers. Like with the gentleman smoking marijunana around you while on the job! They don't understand how they're exchange with their customer can contribute to repeat business.

I worked in customer relations for my dads window and eavestrough cleaning business for a year, and we were both baffled (having years of experience in sales prior to this) at how often today trades people will pass off that first one-on-one encounter with a customer to just have an automated website or other system do the work for them. But 90% of the clientel in this field still just want to deal with a real person in front of them, and so these trades people are in fact losing a lot of business this way. But it's simply because they don't understand the value in that initial encounter, and in how important their relationship with the customer is. And that's due in large part to the fact that we are moving towards an era where computer systems are supposed to be able to "sell" things for us, so we don't have to. (And I'm talking specifically about the field of home maintenance work, because that's what my experience is from. I'm sure there could be other fields that use automated sales in an effective way.) But in reality, do those automated systems really sell things? Or do most customers still prefer a one-on-one encounter with a real person?

Lovely article, really enjoyed reading this. Cheers! :)