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It's an interesting and complex question: what constitutes good service?
Here's an example of a level of service that might have looked great to a manager but wasn't good from the customer's perspective:
Back in the day, a menswear shop in Hobart (which has probably ceased to exist now) had many floor staff - I counted 7 of them - who constantly buzzed around the floor. The store had two entrances, front and rear, and was used as a short cut by many. It was impossible to simply walk through the store without being asked multiple times "Can I help you?"
Some days, I actually was in the market for clothing and acted the customer to see what they had and how good the service was. Sadly, as soon as I said I was looking for a suit/shirt/pants/belt/whatever I was immediately taken to the sale racks - perhaps because I was a young man - but I was never asked what style/colour/price range I liked or anything else. When I tried to introduce those subjects, I was smoothly "overruled" and re-shown sale items with typical "hard sell" tactics.
They get marks for enthusiasm, but they never took the time to understand my needs. Consequently, I never actually bought anything from them.
So, 7 floor staff, and not being able to go 15 seconds without being asked "Can I help you" is not necessarily good service.
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Obviously, I'm not any kind of authority on the subject, but here's my view of good service:
To me, good service consists of taking the time to understand the customer's needs (including if that need is simply to buy a specific make/model of item rather than solve a problem), product expertise, stock availability and management that matches the advertising (and generally having most items available to show or ship), politeness, patience, a genuine willingness to help (including if the best solution is sold elsewhere) and an accommodating after sale service (such as generously honouring warranties and accepting what the customer claims unless obviously false). There are probably other aspects.
Keep in mind that, if a salesperson is employed anyway, it costs nothing extra for them to listen, be polite and not be pushy.
Most online businesses have an enquiry line - phone, e-mail or instant chat - so I see the same service characteristics needed there. What surprises me is when so much effort is put in place to facilitate rapid response to customer questions, but almost zero effort into the quality of the response. To me, one person who definitely gets back to you (say, the next business day or thereabouts) with a good answer is worth a thousand instant chat operators who are utterly clueless and simply read from a script. And then there are the businesses that don't bother to answer enquiries at all ....
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