• Los Angeles Times, Monday, April 28, 2008 10:16 AM

There was a time when businesses welcomed phone calls from customers. Now, many go to extraordinary lengths to avoid calls--preferring that orders and support issues be handled online--and some companies have cut out telephone customer support altogether. The reason, of course, is that a person picking up the phone will want to get paid.

In a sampling of eight prominent Web sites--Amazon, Apple, EBay, Equifax, JetBlue, Microsoft, Target and Yahoo--only one had a toll-free customer service phone number on its home page: Apple. But it's for ordering products and is fairly low on the page, in small type. Finding a technical support number took four clicks to get to a page that listed it, and use of the number came with conditions. Two of the other sites had no phone numbers listed at all, and others charged for the privilege of speaking to a real human.

Shopping maven Lauren Freedman, who is president of the market research firm E-tailing Group, thinks that's just wrong. "You should not have to kill yourself to find the number," Freedman says. "It's an opportunity for a company to say, 'We believe in service.' "

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