What's with Customer Service?

What has happened to customer service? We put up with steadily declining customer service issues every day. I run into tons of problems every time I move. Cable, internet, phone, etc. I can say, so far, that DirecTv has decent service. They seem to be one of the few that understand that I have a job and can't be home to meet a technician at 11AM. They scheduled me for a 12-5 appointment, but the tech called and said he came by at 2PM while I was at work, and he scheduled me for his last stop of the day at 5pm. He was already in my building so it worked out for everyone. Great job!
The folks at AT&T are another story. It was a month from the time I called to start my DSL service that I actually had a reliable internet connection. The tech showed up a week after that. They kept trying to schedule my appointment between 8am and 5pm. I politely told them that I have a job which expects me to be there during those hours. Sure I get off early a lot of days, but my schedule usually has me there till 3 or 4 pm.
Most people have a regular 9-5 job. How do these companies expect consumers to be home during normal business hours? They have jobs, but they don't seem to think anyone else does.
A friend had to call the cable company today after work, at about 4:30PM. They had not only shown up EXACTLY when he said he wouldn't be available, but tried to schedule him for next week. He politely told the woman on the other end of the phone that next week was simply unacceptable. After explaining that we cannot just take the day off, she finally agreed to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning since our schedule has us coming in around noon.
It would take me a whole post to talk about how computers have taken all the intelligence out of customer service, so I'll leave that for the next time a representative tells me "well, sir, the computer won't let us do that."