A good website is like any good employee: it has well defined jobs it is expected to perform, metrics that enable a supervisor to measure if the site is performing as it should, and the flexibility to adapt as needed.
A lot of companies use their website as a first line of defense against customers. That's right: these businesses want to sell without support. They create websites with knowledge bases and community forums where users can help themselves or each other instead of calling for customer support.
There is really nothing wrong with cutting costs by replacing customer service representatives with websites. But how refreshing would it be to hear some honesty when you call for customer support?
Here's the message I'd like to hear when I call customer support. "Thank you so much for calling Acme widgets Inc. We've done our best to help answer your questions in the support section of our website. If you've checked our website and have not found the answer your looking for, please continue to hold. Our support team loves to help. If you haven't checked our support section yet, please take a look now. That will help us help you and other users quicker if your answer is not there."