Where has Customer Service gone?

I have always been amazed that we, as consumers, have been willing to put up with the most horrific treatment from people to whom we pay good money for a product or service. Why is this so? Why are we willing to spend 15 minutes in voice-response pergutory waiting to get to a live person to ask a question of, or 20 minutes waiting in line to pay for our purchases?

Is it because we have become "sensitive" to the "costs of doing business?" (Note: Sorry... I do "that" a lot... put "quotes" around words I want to "highlight." This is my first "post." I will sincerely "try" to do so "much" less going forward.)

Customer Service, a term that brings many thoughts to mind, is painfully missing from most of the businesses we deal with at large these days. I'd prefer to call it something else. Perhaps you can share that term with me if it's one you've already discovered. But, my point is that this dimension of doing business (I almost put quotes around that term) is something that we shouldn't have to put up with.

What if, I decided to stop doing business with stores that kept me waiting in line? Or, I changed insurance companies just because I got to speak to a live person as soon as I called them? do you think it would make a difference to the indifference (wow, it's really hard for me to give up my quotes) we have been suffering for years now?

To be continued.....