I pay most of my bills online. It's convenient, fast and saves a stamp. I'm pleased that many companies finally started seeing the light in that online bill payment benefits them. Up until very recently, many companies fixed a surcharge on online bill payments/electronic funds transfer (EFT). Basically, penalizing you for taking advantage of a service that is convenient for both customer and company. Corporate Darwinism finally did away with that idiocy.

But my gripe lately is that with many companies, their online bill payment system is down so often. For several of my utilities, the sites are down more often than they are up. Perhaps I'm unusual in this respect. But if I'm not, I wonder why these companies put such low priority on a system that is probably responsible for bringing in a large chunk of their revenue.

Are companies today still suffering from "customer e-mail disease," the baffling affliction that makes them think it's perfectly OK to not answer the vast majority of customer e-mails or other online requests?

Hopefully, Corporate Darwinism will ultimately prevail.

TES