Best Buy has never been the best at dealing with customer e-mails, but rather than invest in improving that facet of customer service, the retailer has decided to pull the option from its contact form on its customer service page.

STELLAService’s Happy Customer blog noticed e-mail was no longer listed on the Best Buy site, but it still managed to get a hold of the company, which said it is putting those resources into its live chat customer service.

A rep for Best Buy tells Happy Customer that e-mail is “unable to offer the same level of in-the-moment assistance” as live chat.

The company says a recent survey of BestBuy.com customers showed that 20% of them preferred live chat.

Is it just us or does 20% not seem like enough people to get rid of e-mail altogether.

Though Best Buy claims that live chat allows them to handle customers in a more efficient manner than e-mail or phone support, STELLAService’s own survey of e-tailers’ live chat support on Black Friday weekend found that Best Buy’s was a disaster.

Not only couldn’t the site’s live chat be included in the survey stats because not enough customers were able to get through, the Happy Customer reports that it had only a 5% success rate of even trying to get a live chat rep to help them.

Best Buy’s e-mail response was slightly better, though still pretty sad, with only 15% of e-mails receiving a response within 24 hours.

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