Customer Service

As new home owners, we've had a few repair/estimate people come out to the house to fix things.  I much prefer to online-chat with someone to set up the appointments instead of making phone calls to mind-numbing phone trees of customer service.  Here's a snippet of some of the conversations I've had:

I don't think this guy's name is really Charles Robinson.  I also don't think English is his first language...

This one made me laugh because "Karl" apologized multiple times for me having to wait, when his responses were almost instantaneous.  No waiting involved.  

How about you?  Do you call customer service people?  Chat online?  Smoke signal them?  Write them a snail mail letter??