Everything a company does comes down to customer satisfaction.

Yet there are terrible, aggravating and disappointing companies that flourish and survive. Most of these companies benefit from near-monopolies -- such as the four airlines and four cable companies that make our list.

This list is based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which surveys customers every month.

"These are not terribly competitive industries, as the switching barriers for most of them are quite high," said David VanAmburg of ACSI. "In other industries, like the food or clothing sector, the competition is huge. They bend over backwards to make customers happy, because they have to."

They also tend to be large companies: "When a company grows, there is a tendency to lose customer focus" VanAmburg said.