Servicewüste, service desert, is the standard German complaint about unhelpful customer service. The management professor Hermann Simon is credited with coining it in 1995. By 2001 a management yearbook called Servicewüste Deutschland a widely voiced cliché. In 2024 a GfK survey for the Foundation for Future Studies found that only 27 of 100 Germans think Der Kunde ist König, the customer is king, still holds. In 2019 it was 48. The foundation offered an explanation. Wenn die Dienstleistung zur vollen Zufriedenheit vorhanden ist, wird dieses als Normalzustand gesehen. When a service is delivered to full satisfaction, it is seen as the normal state.