I think you could probably qualify this with the statement that most Fortune 500 companies are more willing to outsource live chat out side of the US because it's easier for a non native speaker to chat than to talk on the phone. Outsourced support leaves individual reps with pretty little power, and worse support for edge cases.

I am not sure what the right solution for this is, but many small-medium companies without outsourced support teams do quite a good job providing chat support. (i.e. Bonobos, Joyant, Rackspace, Gilt Group, Trunk Club, etc..)

I guess the real question is more about how do you scale good support when you grow. Especially when most people see support as a cost center. (Not every CEO wants to be Zappos)