Every time I see someone complain about SE's customer support, it's usually regarding emails or phone calls.
Personally I've always used their online chat support, ever since the early days of FFXI, and always had my issues resolved within minutes of ending the call. (including a very recent call which I've made for a friend to combine his Collector's Edition account with a regular account, which was against their standard policy)

My opinion on why it's better:
1- Phone support staff are constantly subjected to angry yells by self-important/entitled people who give them a hard time, chat support aren't. So there's a different in morale and willingness to go the extra mile to help you out.
2- You won't be charged for waiting an ungodly amount of time on hold.
3- The queue seems to go by pretty fast.
4- You can leave the chat window alt-tabbed and it'll sound a notice when ready.
5- You can upload relevant screenshots/documents in the chat window.
6- When/if you request a supervisor for a non-standard issue, they can easily read the log instead of having to go through the details again with them.

One annoying thing that SE did change, however, is that they made online chat support annoying to access. Most categories that you browse through in the help section will only link you to email support.
Easy way around it is selecting "Account/billing > Information Change" and going to chat support from there. Doesn't matter if it's the wrong category, just type out your issue in the text box before you start.