Online Transaction = No Offline Support

A story ran in Friday's Cleveland Plain Dealer about the fact that many online businesses offer little or no offline support.

When Manfred Ruhe couldn't use the three tickets he had to December's Trans-Siberian Orchestra show at The Q, he gave eBay a try.

The "world's largest online auction" wasn't exactly second nature to the 65-year-old Eastlake man. When prompted to specify how many items he wanted to list, he replied honestly -- three. Although he intended to sell the tickets as one package, eBay listed them as three individual items.

It was a rookie mistake, one that Ruhe soon realized and tried to correct. But when he went searching for a customer service contact on eBay's jam-packed Web site, he got lost in a sea of links. He couldn't find an answer among the "frequently asked questions."

And he couldn't find a phone number -- because eBay doesn't list one for the public.

"It's like they're insulating themselves from any kind of personal contact," Ruhe said.

With the convenience of e-commerce comes a trade-off: lack of personal customer service.

It is simply unbelievable that a company the size of eBay does not offer some level of phone support for paying sellers. Amazon.com is just as bad. Basically the only way to get a phone number is to Google for one and hope that it's right or pull it off of your credit card statement. (Merchants are typically required to list a phone number on credit card statements so customers can easily contact them to question a charge.)

It would be one thing if email support were the peak of efficiency. Unfortunately, response times are often too slow or nonexistent. Even more often, the agent that replies misunderstands the question, creating a seemingly endless loop of frustrating emails that unnecessarily prolong the problem.

The biggest exceptions to this that I have experienced are Road Runner and Go Daddy. Both make their phone numbers readily accessible alongside the FAQ's, email support links and other online options. Go Daddy takes it a step further by actually telling you the estimated response times for phone support versus email support and advising you up front that phone support is fastest (i.e., the best option).

Online companies create distrust when they do not make it easy for customers to reach them. In the long run, they are not saving a dime.