The New York Times has the latest story explaining the decline of customer service. Far From Always Being Right, the Customer Is on Hold by Alina Tugend explains that some companies may have finally recognized that using voice mail trees as a substitute for customer service is a bad idea. I would agree. Why send customers seeking service into impenetrable, rat maze-emulating voice-mail-jails? It's especially dehumanizing because in the rat version of the game, the rat at least gets one way out, with a reward at the end. What does the consumer learn when there is no reward? To hate the company more. The story notes: "But things have started changing, for a number of reasons. For one, companies discovered that customer turnover was expensive." Duh.