They're even wondering whether a self-help online customer service module might drive down overall loyalty and LTV if it drops the number of customer call ins considerably.
My wife is a "LT customer" of diapers.com, and this line made me think back to why: it was because they once shipped the wrong item in place of what we ordered.
When my wife called up the service line, she was surprised at how quickly they helped her out, that they overnighted the correct item, and that they didn't ask for the wrong item to be returned. Considering that I imagine that "ship the right items" is one of the first things a business like this would get right, and that (the LTV of a customer) > (overnight cost of baby cream), could it be that the mistake was intentional?