Customer Service: The Hunt for a Human

From NYT:

Try to reach customer service at Amazon.com to fix a problem with an order and you will encounter one of the most prominent and frustrating aspects of the Internet era: a world devoid of humans. Not only is there no telephone number on Amazon’s Web site, but the company makes a point of not including one. Instead, customers are asked to fill out an online form and wait for a response.
‘It’s incredibly annoying,’ said Ellen Hobbs of Austin, Tex., whose frustration has led her to publish Amazon.com’s customer support number at her own Web site (clicheideas.com/amazon.htm). ‘They haven’t invested the kind of money in helping you solve problems as they have in selling you things.’ In December alone, some 1,100 people visited Ms. Hobbs’s site.

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