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WalMart.com To Shutdown Its Online Call Center

Written by Evan Schuman
September 28th, 2007

Consumers trying to make purchases won't be able to phone for help anymore. Is it to save money or because, as Wal-Mart says, the technology works so well that phone support is no longer needed? Gosh, that's a hard choice.

Pointing to improvements to its Web site, Walmart.com, Wal-Mart officials say that phone support is no longer needed and is shutting it down. Critics label the move as a reckless act of cost-cutting that will quickly haunt Wal-Mart. When Amazon.com decided that customers were frequently asking questions that the Web site could easily handle, "they didn't eliminate the phone service. They were just very smart about how they used it." What Amazon did, however, was hide its phone number and make it only appear when a customer was several layers into a purchase.

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