Customer Service operations have undergone some heavy changes in the last few years. To save money, many call centers have been moved offshore and self-service Websites allow users to tackle mundane tasks like ordering, paying bills and checking statements.
CrowdEngineering believe that the Social Web is bringing a new wave of disruption to the way customers get help. Their CrowdForce platform is already helping telecommunications companies to crowdsource assistance from distributed online communities and is delivering real value. In one year they raised 100k community members, managed over 500k support requests and reduced support costs by $3M.

Source : http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/02/beyond-call-center-community-customer-support.php