[mjpizz]

I see what you mean, but...there are a few things that make it different than a phone number. For one, you can just set an away status (when busy), which you can't do with a phone. And customers never get your IM screen name, they just chat from a chatbox on the page itself :)

Also, sorry if it came off as a rant - I actually agree with thafman that extra tools can help large organizations with big customers. For us, we deal with many SMBs and other small organizations, so email is more than adequate for communicating with those customers.