Recently, marketing guru Seth Godin took a look at a rather cumbersome example of customer service, and raised the questions "What's broken about the architecture of your customer service? What could you change that would leverage the effort you're already putting into it?". 

Now, in this case, it appears as if the company Seth is critiquing had intended to provide a forum for customers to get questions answered in real time, and hopefully have those that visit the chatroom benefit from common questions that other consumers, presumably just like them, were also posing. 

In practice, unfortunately, it seems like the answers needed for many of these questions require a much more personal level of service. The result is several unhappy customers (or at least one high-profile celebrity marketer that decides to blog about it) waiting in queue to get their questions answered, and reading other questions that are not relevant to their needs, instead of being channeled immediately to someone that can help them with their problems one-on-one.

Forums and chatrooms can be a great way to build community and provide basic customer service, but when customers are forced to use them to get answers to more complex questions, they could also lead to customer frustration and abandonment.