I think you are correct in saying that there have been great advantages (and many disadvantages) brought upon by the introduction of the Internet to society. For businesses it has made selling and tracking sales easier by having software that facilitates these processes for them. I think another way businesses can be assisted through the Internet is through customer service teams being equipped with videoconferencing software such as Skype.

By providing a customer service team with Skype, they would be able to see and hear their customers. A limitation of audio only calls is that body language and visual cues are missing from the communication process (Isaacs and Tang, 1994). By introducing video conferencing a customer can choose if they would prefer to talk just on the phone or to video conference directly with the customer service representative. By choosing a video conference platform such as Skype, the customer service representative is then able to use screen sharing capabilities to guide and assist it's customer with any technical difficulties that they may be facing.

Although video conferencing may not be a common method for a company to use, this functionality could be seen as a competitive advantage over other companies in their field.

References:
Isaacs, E., Tang, J. (1994). What video can and can't do for collaboration: A case study. Multimedia Systems, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pages 63 -73.