Online Publishers' Customer Service -- Update

3/5/16 UPDATE: In further correspondence with LuLu, they answered my questions fully and promptly which made me happy. Lulu looks good at this point. Now, it's up to me to make sure I made a good file for use on their site.

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As an author, for me, good customer service is one of my primary criteria in choosing an online publisher as well as other online services.

As a Smashwords.com author, their customer service is very good in my opinion, which I appreciate.

But, in my search for a POD publisher, I have been less than satisfied with the customer service. Most send you to a "knowledge base" which is often a mishmash of customer comments and do not address specific minute details.

For example,

This reply does not address my question specifically and saying they will respond in x number of days is not reassuring. This is the type of reply I get often from various online services including Blogger.com. From my perspective, this is very unsatisfying.

I can not seem to get POD publishers to understand my request.

I want a POD publisher who will 1) host my POD (made by me) for sales and distribution from their site  2) distribute it to other eTailers and 3) make it available for download as a POD file, so customers can go to their local printer to get a copy made.

I see this as another publishing avenue as seen by the growth of the Espresso Business Machine (http://ondemandbooks.com) but even this program does not address the lack of service in many areas of the world where mail service is costly and delivery times are long. But, if local printers could produce a POD, then customers could go to them to get a print copy of a downloaded POD, much like customers do with photobooks.

I do recognize that POD file formats will vary.

Also, in some cases, using POD publishers can be costly.

I am still researching this issue.