For a lot of us northern europeans, it just doesn't fit with our culture. We value honesty and straightforwardness above superficial friendliness. Often I find American customer relationships just provocative. So often they act like robots. You can tell that all their smiles and friendly words are all fake. That makes it all feel like I am being lied to and that employees are forced to act in an unnatural way no matter how they feel that day.

I rather have people act friendly towards me because they want to. If they don't feel that great that day, they don't need to smile and put on a show, as long as they don't give me shit.

And also we like our privacy. When people follow you around the store and keep asking if you need help, or comment on something you are looking at, it just feels invasive and disrespectful.

Mind you I do actually frequently enjoy the more chatty nature of things in the US. And many are genuine about it. But the problem is that for every genuine person there seems to be one that does the whole robot routine because the manager has instructed everybody to have crazy smiles and sell as much shit as possible.