Loyalty/retention/account specialists (three titles, same position) is basically half a step above entry level. If an agent gets employed by a loyalty call center, once they've had a few weeks to get their feet wet they will be moved into loyalty, whether they want to or not.
Executive Resolution Team is a smaller group given more power, and more carefully selected. If something needs to be fixed, they have more tools to fix it, but they're also going to be holding the company line, and at the end, tell you no, there's noone else you can talk to.
To sum up, loyalty agents have less power, but due to lower standards you are more likely to find someone in that department to "abuse" what little power they are given. If, on the other hand, you're talking to agents and you get a vibe that your circumstance is somewhat unusual and that they expect you to deal with it because noone knows how to fix it, that would be a great time to speak with the executive team.
Samiwax... you weren't very specific... but my best guess is that you probably responded to some ad from a third party company where they promised you a gift card or something when you signed up for Dish Network through them. You probably didn't realize you weren't speaking to Dish, and the retailer is very careful not to tip you off. Once they've signed you up, the retailer really don't have any reason to want to talk to you anymore and will try to route you back to Dish if you call them, making the line even more blurry. Dish's position is that the gift in question was a separate agreement you had with them... they don't have gift cards or mp3 players to give out, they'll refer you back to the retailer.
In rare cases you might find someone who will apply credits to your account equaling the value of the retailer gift, but the reality is that this comes up frequently enough that telling you to call the retailer back has become a standard response.
