As most of these companies are Web-based and use automated systems for support, it makes little sense for them to implement call centers with live operators. I

As most of these companies are Web-based and use automated systems for support, it makes little sense for them to implement call centers with live operators. It's not an issue of scalability IMHO (although it's harder to scale telephony than text), but a matter of cost: human phone operators are much more expensive. They could create better automated voice replies, though - in fact, I believe that will be the case soon, what with voice recognition and TTS getting a lot better every day...