Business that requires direct customer service, that's where. If the post's heading attracted you, you should give this HN thread about Google Checkout woes a read. As many on the thread point out, there is a upper bound you hit when optimizing customer service against efficiency. After a stage, the more you serve, the less you can attend to them when they have problems. So, you automate and automate and hope all customers will be robots who follow a process without error. But, then, as always, reality intervenes. Clearly, Google isn't the only company you can beat in this area.
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Update: welcome Consumerist readers! While I use my own experience to illustrate concerns about third-party online merchants, this post is mainly about the bigger long-term informational problems I see with reputation, reliability, and online communities. Please feel free to weigh in!
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