Oh, it's worse than that Amy. A certain Northeastern grocery chain's CFO tried to have my wife fired for suggesting that a customer call the company's consumer service number. The customer wanted to know why X was twice as expensive in this store than at a competitor.

Evidently complaining about high prices is not something they want to hear about. That needs to be dealt with at the store level, by the managers who have no control over the prices...

I would guess a lot of poor performance is going to get blamed on a bad economy. Some of it is richly deserved and would happen if everyone were getting bailout checks.

This past weekend I replaced our old computer. As I was setting it up, I realized I would likely need the software for the cable modem driver. As I did not have the software disk, I called my cable operator to ask if I could pick one up at the local office.

After navigating their phone tree, I was eventually deposited in the queue for internet technical support. When I finally got to a live person, she would hear nothing of my request, but instead proceeded to diagnose my problem. After about twenty minutes of plugging in and unplugging cables, restarting my computer several times, and powering everything off and then back on (several times - all the while I kept telling her that I just needed the software), she finally proclaimed that she could not help me repair my problem, but would have a technician come out and repair the problem for me.

When the technician showed up a few hours later, I met him at the door with an explanation of what I needed: software to install the driver. After he had spent about 15 minutes plugging in and unplugging cables, restarting my computer several times, and powering everything off and then back on, he proclaimed, "Maybe you just need the software for the driver . . . "

How can companies continue if they do not listen to their customers?

I hope you had luck getting your problem taken care of, but knowing dish like I do, I doubt it. We've had problems w/ Dish, Direct TV, and Time Warner.
Dish and Direct TV could never be bothered to get our package correct; We where always billed for the next highest tier. Every month I would have to call and get it fixed, and sometimes, that wasn't enough. We would get disconnect notices, despite the fact we paid our bill.
The trouble I went through to get our wiring fixed was unreal. The Dish technicians cut all our wiring that Direct TV had done and they ended up cutting our phone lines too.
Finally, we went back to Time Warner. Then the bad storm hit and wiped out our cable nodes. Our cable was out for over a month. Our net was out too. (Both DH and I rely on the net for our work.) I can understand about being understaffed and underfunded, but I will not be billed, and expected to pay for, services I'm not receiving. We finally got that fixed and our HD DVR went out. Time Warner told me it would take three weeks to get a replacement. I told them I would drop the damn box off and they could cancel my service. All of it. Net and cable.
Now we have DSL thru a local phone company and my computer is hooked up to my TV. Basically, my TV is a huge monitor. I watch my shows online and am able to enjoy a wider variety than I ever was with Dish, Direct TV, or Time Warner. ( I love BBC) I even get the premium stuff for free. I pay one low bill a month (Around $30.00), and I haven't had problem one.
I would suggest everyone do this. It's easier, cheaper, and kinda cool.

Truth -

I love watching the tee vee online. Much more pleasant that way and so much cheaper than cable or satellite. I occasionally have to pay to download something I want to watch, but then I get the benefit of no commercials. And I've never paid more than forty dollars in a month for the downloads. Work pays half my internet cost and I also need it for school, so I figure that doesn't really count in the cost. But even if it did, my folks pay nearly a hundred bucks for cable, the internet and their fax/landline. My internet and personal phone are only sixty a month, because my personal line is bundled with my work phone (comes in on the same phone even).

Hah, I got to distracted by not having cable or sat, that I forgot to bitch about outsourced customer service.

I have a old friend who was the penultimate telemarketer/phone rep. He rose to the heights of his profession and was working as a consultant opening call centers. Then his rather less than socially acceptable fondness for the amphetamines caught up with him - he was allegedly financially involved in a little consortium of folks who were allegedly manufacturing meth. They got busted and he felt it might be expedient to leave the country for a while.

So now he makes a whole lot more money overseas, doing the same sort of thing. Only there's a twist. A huge part of his job is to train people to think more American, as he puts it. He, and several people who do that sort of work have managed to triple their incomes, while mostly living on per diam.

Now I am not all that fond of telemarketers. But I kind of take issue with the notion of outsourcing it. Especially given that, according to my friend, the money saved by doing it is not nearly as significant as one would assume it is. The fact is we're not going to be rid of telemarketers and phone reps. The least companies that use them could do, is let those jobs go to fucking Americans.

Although it does seem to have benefited my bro, who lives in Rotterdam, when he's not working and seems to be enjoying life.

IF you persist in speaking to a supervisor, you'll almost always find someone in the US. I'm very tough about this, and have given up any feelings of guilt about asking to speak to someone in the US. If the guy in Mumbai gets his feelings hurt, he'll get over it. Verizon's customer service is all in the US, and while Citibank tries, you can get someone here if you ask about 3 times.
Target off=shored their call centers, and I wrote them a stiff note.

I ran into the problem when I had TurboTax problems in 2007. I found out that if you ask, you will be given an American. I wanted to speak to an American who paid taxes in America, because the Indians weren't understanding a few things.

Plenty of US-based customer "service" reps are equally clueless, unfortunately.