I am just going to cut to the chase based on my own personal experience as a baby boomer along with many others whom I have spoken to over the years in addition to having read numerous online articles/reviews provided by disgruntled customers in which event my perception is that online customer service/support has essentially gone to Hell in a Handbasket. Needless to say, I am hard pressed to name at least five reputable online vendors/companies that in my honest opinion presently offer what anyone in their right mind would consider customer service/support above and beyond the call of duty especially in a society overrun by greed, unscrupulous and deceitful advertising, and a mindset that thrives on an end justifies the means approach to achieve goals no matter who gets hurt in the process. Meanwhile, it never ceases to amaze me regarding the marketing tactics businesses continue to dream up and rely on for the expressed purpose of extorting money from unsuspecting consumers. In fact, if you wonder why there exists such a high level of cynicism and distrust among consumers, you only need to examine the free 30-day trial offer many online software vendors advertise that requires a credit card up front. Truth is, the software vendor is banking on the consumer forgetting to cancel the free trial offer before it ends. If a customer should forget to cancel the free trial offer while it's active, the credit card of the unsuspecting/forgetful consumer gets charged immediately once the free trial ends and recurring billing becomes activated. Moreover, once the billing cycle begins, if you plan to dispute the charge with a credit card company to get a refund, think again. Based on empirical evidence and fine print presented in the free trial offer agreement explaining the terms thereof, the charge made to your credit card will more than likely remain and be upheld by your credit card company in which event you may as well kiss your anticipated refund goodbye. As for purchasing a product online that was made in China selling for well under $100 that ends up becoming defective several months after purchase, while you may be able to obtain a refund or replacement item for a product purchased on Amazon or elsewhere, based on the author's experience, this isn't always the case. Unfortunately, what has since become a global economy over the years has added unscrupulous online vendors to the mix who are well aware they can easily get away with selling inferior products made in their respective country to Amazon and elsewhere online and refuse to honor a warranty allegedly provided at time of purchase. As a humorous side note, try asking an attorney if he/she would be willing to represent you in a court of law at a cost of $300-$400 per hour to obtain a $40 refund for a product made in China purchased online and supposedly under warranty provided by the manufacturer and they'll think you're intellectually disabled. Also, don't expect Amazon to honor a product warranty provided by a vendor no longer in business located outside the USA unless you purchased an extended warranty through Amazon.

Another yet popular and widely used method that appears to have gotten worse over the years is outsourcing customer service/support to countries like India where online businesses save anywhere from 60 to 90 % labor costs hiring people outside the USA who can hardly articulate let alone process the English language in addition to being clueless regarding the product provided, constantly apologizing for issues due primarily to inept corporate policy procedures and poor decision making coupled with an inability to resolve issues over the phone. In short, it's completely unacceptable, inexcusable, and pathetic while stockholders remain happy and content, and corporate employees continue to snort coke and get paid for doing little to nothing with the luxury of having poorly trained or untrained personnel residing in India and elsewhere deal with disgruntled customers leaving issues unresolved in the process. Finally, while there was a time vendors used to openly display a phone number on their website, they eventually elected to hide their phone number from view making it difficult for visitors to find on their website and then later decided to remove the phone number entirely from their website in favor of email correspondence using a contact form along with the integration of chat rooms whereby you're corresponding with either a robot (think AI) or a poorly trained/untrained human being at best where only the most basic, easy to diagnose issues get resolved not to mention AI needs a lot of work, given it's not the panacea many believe it to be leaving much to be desired. Case in point, whenever the author experienced a technical issue regarding a website theme, template, or ISP server related issue, customer service was essentially clueless, apologetic, and full of excuses including placing the author on hold several times or more in what later turned out to be a futile attempt to presumably discuss the issue with a superior or colleague that ended up unresolved not to mention the number of times the author was disconnected and required to repeat the entire process. In reality, the author was forced to resolve many issues on his own whereby one case was related to an error in the code provided inside a php file included in a website template the author had purchased from an online software vendor whose customer support team was virtually clueless regarding an existing bug in the software product that prevented the author from using a contact form included in the website template. Sorry for the technical jargon, however the point remains that the consumer—in this case the author—shouldn't have been the one required to resolve a technical issue related to a software product recently purchased online. Unfortunately, this wasn't an isolated incident but one that has been experienced by the author on several occasions in which event I rest my case.

While I could easily provide further examples to show how customer service and support has become progressively worse over the past 10-20 years given corporate greed and an ideology intended to satisfy stock holders where the end justifies the means at the expense of the consumer, as long as this mentality exists and consumers continue to demand and purchase cheap products that fail to deliver as promised, customer service and support will never return to what it once was. As for a solution, my suggestion would be to divert time, money, and energy working to create new and improve existing products that deliver and exceed expectations as advertised rather than focusing on ways to extort money from unsuspecting consumers based on deceitful marketing to purchase inferior products. Unfortunately, I can almost assure you that any solution in favor of the consumer will end up falling on deaf ears as long as the corporate world continues practicing an ideology based entirely on chasing the almighty dollar with little to no regard for customers who unknowingly continue to provide support by purchasing cheap inferior products in the process.