I read this post early, but couldn’t get to commenting to late. 120 replies late. (Holy commenting Batman!) 
 
I think EVERY company who wants to survive MUST offer human, smart, effective and LIGHTNING fast online support. The best way to tick a customer or potential customer off is to make it hard to do business. 
 
I had a service issue with Paypal a while ago. Couldn’t get local debit charges to go through for a client. I e-mailed, and got this awful machine response which later passed me along to a – sorry about this – zombie who wrote me back with a ‘cut and paste’ answer which really didn’t help me. 
 
I wrote back to re explain the problem. Same cut and past response. Useless. Last time I wrote them. Last time I really tried to use them too. 
 
On the other hand, Madmimi, an email service provider I was using ROCKS with online service. Twitter (business hours) and E-mail(24 hours) response times are under 5 minutes – are effective, and personal. Even when they goofed by double billing me – nothing major, just 10 bucks) they were INSTANT to fix it, and refund. (And apologized as if they had double billed me for millions.) I loved them for that. 
 
Great post….been thinking on it off and on through the day. 

This is a classic “race to the bottom” result.  In our attempt to woo customers with low prices we actually alienate them when we cut out something vitally important: customer service.As far as I am concerned relationship always wins.  Even when it costs a little more. 

This post reminds me of my friend/retail mentor Shirley’s advice to ALWAYS make it easy for the customer. That is, make it easy if you want the sale. If you are just working at a J-O-B, then whatever passes the time. . . yawn. But if Buy.com wants the sale, they need to understand Love Works.

Here’s what I don’t get.
 
The person who emailed you took (let’s just say 1:30). I realize she probably copied and pasted a response, but still she had to open it, read it, copy, paste, and send. 
 
If you then followed her instructions, you would call someone who would spend 5:00.
 
Total time invested by company: 6:30.
 
If that same first person had just spent 5:00 answering your question, the company saves 1:30 and gets the sale.
 
It’s so simple Buy.com (and anyone)…take a few of your customer service people from the phones and put them on email. Then all of the email questions get answered, more people buy, and you need less staff. DUH!!!!
 
What company wouldn’t want this formula:
 
More Sales + Less Payroll = More Profits
 
Why is it that hard to get for them, or for anyone?

I think they should have an ACTUAL live person replying to the email, the chat option AND Twitter. I don’t know ANYONE  who likes those annoying 1800 phone trees or wasting a  half an hour to do what should have been a 30 second process. 

I feel that to provide a satisfying experience for all customers e-commerce business should have all channels of communication open to customer service. Using a live chat tool can answer quick questions for customer that navigate well on the web. Telephones are old technology, but useful for the customer base that is still adapting to modern technology. 

I think there’s a big assumption happening here in that we assume that a company cares as much about our time as we do.  The reality is that very few companies care about the customer more than they do themselves.  (this is why we’re pleasantly surprised when we find that exceptional one!)  To me, this is a failure in leadership.  The leaders at these types of companies have never put themselves in their customers’ shoes for a minimum amount of time.  Does anyone really think their C-level executive would accept an email to call a phone number at their company if they have an issue?  They’ve probably never even called the 800 number once, because they call a direct number to get what they need.  When there’s a disconnect between leadership and the customer then there are definitely going to be bone-headed solutions.  This, to me is why secret-shoppers are so revealing.  
 
  Another issue I have is that what would it take to get leadership to make sure they listen to suggestions of those closest to the customer?  Not much, but it would make a great difference in at least a couple of ways.  1) they’d get ( hopefully ) a better customer experience and 2) give their employees ( all the way down to the lonely entry-level customer service rep) the opportunity, and dignity, to be involved in the process.  Now everyone is plugged in.

One of my pet peeves is when someone responds to me in a different method than I initiated.  If I email, respond by email–don’t call, if I call, return the call–don’t email. I am sure those that respond by phone are trying to give top notch service, but a phone call after an email, feels like a doorbell at dinner time!

I’m going a little different direction.  What if they solve Chris’ first problem by making the comparison process easier?  All of the subsequent steps and frustration would have been negated. 

Generally, I’m all about adding the human element to every interaction possible. I think dehumanizing interactions is the wrong way for companies to go.
 
That being said, when a customer is so obviously trying to avoid making a phone call, and just wants to get in and get out quickly, then yes, they ought to provide every tool possible to interact with you the way you want to be interacted with.
 
Look at Zappos. If you call them, they’re the most personable company on the planet. They’ll chat your ear off if you let them, and you’ll feel all warm & fuzzy when you’re done, having likely feel like you made a new friend at the end. If you’d rather, you can spend your time interacting with their fantastic web site and never have to speak with a live human being. But you’ll still get their “full monty” so to speak, because they have so many other ways to humanize their relationship with you — inserts in your packaging, follow-ups, emails, and so on.
 
Short answer (I know, too late): Yes. They should have accommodated you. Funnel you towards making the call if you want, but there should have been an off-ramp for online interaction. There should never be a reason for you to bail and take your money elsewhere unless they just don’t have what you want, and even then they should help you find it quickly and easily so you’ll remember to come back there again.