not many people (except us “old webguys”) are thinking about looking for a service number through a searchengine instead the website of the company – it just doesn’t make sense in their minds to find it faster through an independent party than through the company by itelf.
David from Germany dropped a note to remind me that not every telephone infrastructure is set up like ours here in the US. My bad: I have reminded people of that myself enough times (this is the reason why internet uptake didn’t explode in Europe as it did in the US: they used to pay for every minute of connect time, so “browsing” was not likely to be a winning leisure time activity without some changes).
Of course, it might make sense for Amazon.de and the other national franchises to handle customer service according to local expectations.
That Wave from the album Nonsuch by XTC
[Posted with ecto]