I live in an outer suburb which is serviced by a Telstra only exchange.
If I lived *two blocks* further over I would have a choice.

In essence, I can only get ADSL2 from the Gorilla at 2-3 times more expensive than is readily available from opposition companies.

I have ordinary ADSL through another supplier because Telstra were mandated to share that facility at that level. In effect my supplier is a re-seller yet I get it cheaper that from the Big T direct.

I also note that Telstra ignore the "do not call" on my phone as they service it. I get regular calls to "check if I'm getting the best out of the services" (AKA to sell me Foxtel, Mobiles or ADSL2)

Clearly ADSL2 is (IMO) a nice to have but I refuse to be held to ransom for it.

I'm not complaining as such but wonder what others think of Telstra's high handed exploitist strategies.
There is a truism in Customer service ...."for every happy client you get 5 referrals, for every unhappy client you lose 10."

Corporations today simply don't care about the customer just their profit. It seems to me that the link between the two is unimportant if you are the biggest/available. i.e. Convenience and aspiration trumps customers individual needs. But doesn't that negate the principals of Capitalism...bending the silent hand of the customers (AKA market)up their back.

Sadly I could authoritatively point to multiple franchises that inhabit shopping centers that preach, "get as much as you can the first time there may not be a second opportunity".

Availability is the key. people will buy what is there rather than search. This is the reason shopping centres financially limit how many of which sellers goes in.

In supermarket the cash across the till is a just a part of these organizations profits. Profit is multi streamed and has little to do with the customer/choice or indeed the price, to the customer.

Anybody want to guess why we as a society are becoming more insular and indifferent to others.
R.I.P. a fair go?

*Corporations today simply don't care about the customer just their profit.*

Rubbish. Its a win-win situation because organisations who give
customers what they want, long term do better. Customers vote with
their wallets.

OTOH, if a corporation is pricing things so low that they don't
make a profit, then they won't have the capital to invest. So
they have to think long term.

When Telstra was a real Govt monopoly, they charged me up to 9$
an hour for internet access. Today its 1.50$ a day, for a
massively improved service. Frankly for 1.50, I think I'm getting
a bargain, compared to what else 1.50$ buys.

The problem that Telstra has is that it is forced to onsell
to so called retailers at bargain basement rates. Most of these
resellers invest in nothing but an office and drive us nuts with
calls from India, trying to win business.

Yet it is Telstra that has to come up with the billions of $
required to be invested each year in infrastructure and that money
has to come from somewhere.

What is showing too, is that you, the consumer, are becoming ever
fussier, not appreciating the great deals that are available to
you today, compared to 20 years ago. Yup, people have short
memories.

Don't know the answer to this one exammy. Good customer service is becoming rarer but not impossible to find in smaller family owned business or at producers' markets.

Remember the days when you phoned a company and actually got a person on the phone within seconds who helped you with your call. Now we get phone trees, and outsourced call centres where you don't know how much of your personal information is being handed on - particularly by banks.

Exammy this is why essential services like telecommunications, utilities and water etc should not be privatised. While there was much to bemoan about Telstra even when in government hands (lets face it they always had bad service), at least there was more accountability and a public duty to service rural areas.

What happened. Well the customer got the shaft but I am not sure why - when did it all go belly up. Customer service was not always seen as an 'efficiency dividend' but an assett to business. This was prior to the mantra of economic rationalisation.

One of my close work colleagues used to work for a big organisation and he put it that customer service was a risk management exercise. Balancing the drive for profits with managing costs was tricky - ensuring enough customer service and lower complaints versus less customer service and writing off the complaints as part of the risk management process and bigger profits due to reduced labour costs.

But in this industry he said everyone was doing the same so as long as most of the bigger players were doing it, the competitive aspect was not a big concern.

As consumers we can still vote with our wallets but only in those industries where there is not collusion or price fixing strategies. The free market fails often to provide real competition when there are failures in regulatory bodies like the ACC or ASIC.

Maybe because everyone is getting greedier, consumers, business and shareholders alike, it all has a cyclic flow on effect.

"Corporations today simply don't care about the customer just their profit."

Indeed they do. Todays business is based on profit, with service a very poor second.

This is vastly different to a time when profit was necessary, but service was a matter of pride to a company,- and not considered a necessary casualty in the pursuit of profit.

This is not only apparent, but glaringly so.....

*Maybe because everyone is getting greedier, consumers, business and shareholders alike*

Ah, very true. At least you are not just blaming it all on those
"evil corporations", as so many do.

Of course service has gone downhill. Because the real cost of
labour has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. So you are not
going to get ever cheaper telecommunications and ever cheaper
consumer goods, whilst its costing the company around 50$ an
hour to employ somebody, to listen to your problems.

That 50$ an hour is a pretty good ballpark figure to work from,
when you add up all costs.

But consumers want to haggle about paying 1.50$ a day for internet
access and be upset if somebody is not there at their beck and call,
when they have a problem.

So perhaps Examinator, it is just your consumer greed that is
the real problem :)

What about the pressure to meet short term financial goals and the focus of CEOs and senior managers on excessive annual bonuses?