The Consumerist website showed this graphic recently about poor service received by Comcast Cable and telephone subscribers across the USA. It was part of an internally circulated Powerpoint presentation by a call centre manager on their CQE (Customer Quality Experience) programme and the lack of seriousness with which it is taken inside the company culture.

You can view it here and… it is not for the weak of heart. For decades warning bells have sounded about large monopolistic companies with little desire to do anything but control even vaster empires. In the UK, Rupert Murdoch owned and controlled BSkyB or SKY customers, could probably match Comcast story for story.

BT (British Telecomm), Tesco supermarkets and SKY make up the UK hit list of large companies that say they care and do little. Too, here in the UK we have the added possibility that one’s calls could be answered by some poor, sleep-deprived young person in India reading from computer help screen pages at 3:00 am.

Service is now so poor across the board that when we receive mediocre service, “well, they did what they said they would do, didn’t hang up or disconnect and the service guy was only an hour late,” we think that “good service.”

I wrote an article in Wales’ Western Mail newspaper as a open letter to BT’s Chairman Ben Verwaayen which was never really answered. Yes, a woman called to investigate and we talked a couple of times but there never was a formal response almost six months later. It went away and they were not even remotely ruffled.

My local Tesco recently lost 35-40% of its business (measured by floor traffic and my sudden ability to get .com home delivery slots) to a new ASDA. Aside from a few price discounts, not much has changed internally. The management team still walk the floor with blinders and are tone deaf to the human voice and they still beg their cashiers to start their shifts on time over the store PA. “Would all 10 am cashiers, please come to the front immediately” said at 10:07 am as queues extend five and six deep.

So what makes companies so arrogant? In a word, money… and lots of it. All of the above companies are so big and own such huge overall market share that your concern is not even remotely connected to any of theirs.

Tesco earns almost £100,000 every minute of every day. They have a PR SPIN department that would rival George Bush’s White House machine, you know the group that sold us the war that never ends? And they all dance the same dance… never, ever acknowledge the premise of the question asked and then in 80’s disco style… dance, dance, dance!

They know the news cycle and attention span of a viewer is short and unless you are misbehaving badly on Big Brother, are caught acting out erotic Nazi sex fantasies (and even he kept his job!) or are a top footballer going too far in public… bad news disappears before it sticks.

They also know that the UK public is loathe to make a scene or really complain about anything. So we have collectively rolled over and been rolled. We pay to call them about our account on special 0870 lines that kick back half the call cost to them so we pay their call centre costs every time we need service!

Our only hope as consumers is if those on the inside like this group of Comcast employees let it be known that they are just as frustrated at not being able to serve us. In time pendulums do swing back to centre and beyond.

The only way to impact is vote with your feet in such numbers that it makes a real impact. 40% in one store would be significant to a three store chain. It is not enough to a multi-thousand in dozens of countries chain. A few customers threatening to take their business elsewhere is not enough for companies measuring income in the kind of numbers these behemoths make to do anything substantive. And they know it.

Our only hope is to all link arms like the ants in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life to defeat the bullying grasshopper chains. And they know we are not capable of doing that so they continue unabated.

Maybe the recession will get them to change? Time will tell.