Customer service

Why is customer service commonly uncommon?
We see this in numerous instances in our daily life, especially in India.

One example of this happened yesterday when I visited our cafeteria yesterday with a colleague.
One of the stalls, let's say Stall A, sells slightly overpriced food items, albeit tasty ones. There were 3 people to take care of the stall, but not one of them was actually behind the counter. This had the potential effect of customers walking to one of the other 3 stalls. As I was watching the 3 stall care-takers, a bunch of customers paused in front of the stall to study the menu on display. One of the 3 care-takers sauntered up and kept looking at the customers for a full minute without once engaging them in conversation. The customers decided to move on, having found nothing to their liking. The care-taker simply sauntered back to talk to his colleagues. The stall owner would have fumed to see such slackness.

How do we overcome this basic apathy in service workers?What should have been a sure-fire sale yesterday, turned to a no-sale. Further, the attitude of the care-taker ensured little possibility of repeat business from that bunch of customers.

Sad.