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Hi Steve, I don't know whether Dell is actually listening to their customers (they probably are since several previous responses indicated that they were) but I wonder if more companies would actually listen to their customers if they got the chance. We generally assume that huge companies view us as an almost unlimited school of tiny, gullible fish, so any individual complaint goes directly into the round file (or its electronic equivalent.) Viewed that way, it's hard to bother to take the time to voice a complaint directly to those who could actually do something about it. We grumble to each other and get some small amount of cold satisfaction from knowing that we're not alone. Even a company that took the common sense view that treating its customers well would be good for business would be hard pressed to be very responsive if the only feedback they got was the quarterly sales figures. I've often thought about an incident where I ate in a restaurant where the waitress who served my table was terrible---incompetent with a bad attitude. My response was to not leave her a tip and not eat in that restaurant again. Since I'm a fairly outspoken guy, I imagine that more people than not would have handled it the same way. Only later did it occur to me that it was likely that the owner didn't know that this employee was turning customers against the restaurant every minute she worked there. If Dell has to listen to their customers through sales figures, it's not really doing either Dell or the customers any good. Maybe what we should do when we get in a situation like yours is to call Dell (or whoever) back and tell them that they lost a sale to Wal-Mart (or whoever) because of their refusal to provide the product we asked for. All the best, Stan
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