The other day, I was searching for the smallest 1TB (terabyte) external drive I could find. So naturally, I went to my go-to website—Buy.com. It’s one of my favorite shopping sites because the online store tends to have everything under the sun and at lower prices.

I first checked to see if they stocked the flash drive size I needed, but no luck. Geez … how are we not that advanced yet?! C’mon! (Sarcasm by the way.) But they had many passport-size versions. And when I say many, I mean MANY! Unfortunately, there was no way to compare the drives side by side. I would have to click on EVERY option and scroll down to the bottom to find the info I needed.

Being me, I quickly looked for the is-there-any-way-we-can-help-you button. I didn’t find one. I did find, however, a help link at the top that went to a customer service phone number. But again, being me, I didn’t want to wait forever on the phone, so I clicked a couple more links to find an email address.

I sent a nice email asking what the smallest 1TB external drive available was. They responded with:

Hello Chris,

Thank you for your interest in shopping at Buy.com!

Buy.com’s sales department is available via our toll-free phone number 1-800-800-0800 seven days a week, 24 hours a day to help you with any issue you may have.

Buy.com appreciates your business, and we look forward to your call.

Sincerely,

Victoria Rakuten

Buy.com Customer Support

As you can see, it’s a very nice response. There’s nothing mean, bad or jerkish about the e-mail.  In fact, I REALLY like Buy.com, and will continue to make purchases from them. But I didn’t want to spend time on the phone waiting. So, I quickly Googled “smallest 1TB external drive,” found one that I liked and bought it. Because Buy.com won me over in the past, they automatically would have had my sale. But by sending me to the phone, they lost my money.

Normally, I would wind up this post with a lesson. But today, I want to know what you, as a business owner or leader, think. Should Buy.com have online customer service? Should someone have taken my email, found out the answer, and sent me the actual answer? You decide.