Phone calls are necessary for anything that needs flexibility.
Coding flexibility in a website is incredibly hard.
Think about it. A restaurant doesn't have anything veggie on the menu, a last minute guest arrives and is veggie. You call to ask if there is something that can be done.
It's possible to code that, but it's a lot of work to get all the scenarios right.
I said transactional things, by which I mean things that don't require any special figuring for the vast majority of cases.
In the case of a restaurant, having their menu online would make it so you knew in advance of the restaurant has something you can eat. Lots of restaurants still don't do even this.
Coding flexibility in a website is incredibly hard.
Think about it. A restaurant doesn't have anything veggie on the menu, a last minute guest arrives and is veggie. You call to ask if there is something that can be done.
It's possible to code that, but it's a lot of work to get all the scenarios right.