If you’ve been online looking for presents over the holiday season, you might have noticed more and more chat boxes popping up, asking if you need some help. 

Online customer service reps do everything from track down an out-of-stock pair of earnings, to reroute a package, to help pick the perfect red lipstick. Retailers are hoping the reps can help reach customers … anywhere and everywhere. 

Marketplace’s Adriene Hill spent a day in the Nordstrom customer service center in Seattle, Washington, to find out who, exactly, is writing back. The center estimates its reps talk to about 15,000 customers in one day. And though most people still prefer a phone call to talk to customer service, about 20 percent of customers use online chat.

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Notable customer service stories from 2014:

Wall Street Journal: Lowe’s Introduces Robotic Shopping Assistants

Slate: Listen as a Desperate Comcast Rep Refuses to Cancel a Customer’s Service

Business Insider: Why Richard Branson Once Prank-Called His Own Company Demanding to Speak To Richard Branson