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Once Again, Google's Customer Service Is Becoming An Issue
from the this-again? dept
We've had a whole string of stories in the last few months about communication problems from Google -- from users getting locked out of their documents to advertisers banned with no explanation or recourse to a blogger who went six months trying to get Google to turn back on a blog that it had shut down. I've heard from a few Google folks, noting that they recognize it's an issue, and it's something that some people within Google are trying to deal with. But given all of these problems on "smaller" issues, perhaps it's no surprise that there's been an outcry over the poor customer service people are receiving after purchasing Nexus One phones from the company.
Google does lots of things really well. But, clearly, customer service is not one of them. And while its massive success can hide (or at least minimize) the impact of such poor customer service, at some point it's really going to begin to hurt, unless Google finally wakes up to the fact that when people have problems, they want to be able to reach out to a human being who will listen to them, hear what they have to say and (hopefully) help. Some have claimed that this is just not Google's culture -- and perhaps that's the case, but at some point that cultural flaw may cause much larger headaches.
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Seem to me more than just poor customer service. The whole double ETF on the Nexus can't be blamed on customer service.
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Hmmm
One would think a Google search would turn up quite a few answers about the Nexus One...?
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Google Is IVR or .com
It's true. It's a big weakness of Google. I've written some comments in other techdirt threads about this. Some other commenters said "great, google phone, now we'll have a free phone with free cellular plans" in response, I pointed out that google would charge for their phone, and you wouldn't see a discount on the plan. The reason for that is the same as the reason for today's discussion:
Google makes money by doing cheap things, in very high volumes, keeping costs down, and making small revenue each time they do it. How many web searches do they do? How much do they make per web search? But do enough, and you make profit.
Sooo, that brings us to customer service. Every time a customer calls a call center, the cost is something on the order of $7 - $15 dollars (dependent on a bevy of factors, of course). One single such call to Google for a Gmail problem, or blog problem would kill their profitability for a specific user. Thus, they have built a culture of good products, and decent web support. They have also relied heavily on community support (cheap, crowdsourced). What they DON'T do is provide a human to solve your problem.
That support model works fine when Google is offering free services, as people don't expect too much...and Google manages expectations by calling it "beta" for years. But if a customer drops $500+ on a Nexus...well, the expectations just changed. That customer will expect the seller to support the product.
Apple users have the fantastic option of going to an Apple store and getting a wizart to help them with their Mac or iPhone. Google users have...web community help!
This will definitely be a problem for Google. It will be interesting to see if it remains so, of if they can react, and change -- at least in their $500 unit cost businesses. But their B2B relationships don't suggest so: Advertisers and partners who do easily far more than $500 of business with Google have long complained of a lack of "human intervention" when problems occur. For now, Google is basically the .com equivalent of voice mail hell.
Still, I think Google is a great company. It's funny, but we also sing the praises of Zappos.com, but the two great companies are almost total opposites on customer service.
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Customer Service?
Google, like all corporations, cares about one thing: money. Companies like this do not care AT ALL about the customer. The ONLY time they care about the customer is when they are either a) forced to, by laws, or b) enough customers complain/leave and there is enough impact on the money. Otherwise, they could care less. If it affects the money, then they care... ABOUT THE MONEY. Never about how they are treating the customer.
This is true in ALL cases.
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Sony Timer
Big companies have one flaw they can't give good costumer service, they are to small to the size of the market they occupy and they wouldn't have the resources to attend all people. Its basic math really, you can't service millions having only a few thousand employees but it gets to a point when rumors start appearing like the Sony Timer thing in Japan where people think that Sony on purpose put a expire timer on their products, of course no one have ever proved that to be true still the rumor persist in Japan could it happen to Google? I think it could, in time some rumor will appear an people will be inclined to believe it and it will hurt them.
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/01/secret-sony-timer-kills-products-after-warranty/
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im surprissed google hasnt tried to do some sort of crowd sourcing expirement. with the tech in google voice able to transcribe voice to text woud it not be possible to like crowd source volentiers and vet them based on whether the software can pick up their voice or not.
add in some sort of ranking system for wether a person is helpfull or not and either whuffie or money when/if a problem is solved and you have potential for a cheap customer service setup that would sort of scale to times when its most needed. ie people would log on to there help account when they have time to take (voip)calls and that would be most likely at a similar time when everyone else is calling for help. and because you only pay them when they actually help someone you also get a low cost solution.
although fruad would be a pretty big problem.
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It's okay, they will fix it in the algo.
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Re:
Perhaps the bad customer service is purposeful in order to get people to cancel and have to pay the double-ETF? ;)
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Get Big Enough and Everyone Hates You
Google 'saved' us from Microsoft - who will save us from Google?
Seriously, Google is venturing into a market they do not have a great deal of experience in. I would be extremely surprised if they did not have problems and complaints.
This is why I have a basic $50 cell phone with a pay as you go no contract network access. The smart phone market is relatively new and there are a lot of growing pains to be worked through.
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You are correct and funny
TAM,
You are correct. Google wants to automate everything. The Google model has no place for customer service reps.
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Communications companies can't communicate.
I've noticed that it's endemic to companies whose specialties involve communications. Google is such a company, even if their specialty is linking advertisers to customers.
The old Ma Bell and Xerox in their heydays didn't listen to what people wanted or needed. This has been equally true of their successors in the various cell-phone/land-line/ISP areas. Comcast and Verizon's crappy customer service are legendary.
And the grandest examples of all, the movie, recording, and publishing industries are pretty much stone deaf to feedback, unless it's what they're willing to hear, and accompanied by bushels of $$$$.
So Google's problem is a surprise how?
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Did anyone bother listening to those of us who were very unhappy (and highly vocal) G1 buyers? I was so vocal, someone, either Google or T-Mobile, invited and paid me to take part in a focus group of power users, asking what they could do better in the future. A year later, I still don't have my damned Adobe Flash or a PDF reader (some third-party PDF apps exist, but so far, they all suck wind), while my five-year-old first-generation smart phone has all those capabilities and more.
I'm super pissed that the Nexus has the G1's missing basic features built in, particularly the Adobe Flash Player. Hello. There's nothing like telling your very first generation of Android customers to take a long walk off a short pier. When I heard a tech reporter describing the features of the Nexus from the floor of CES, I almost drank the Kool-Aid, because the phone sounds absolutely fantastic, and then I remembered. I drank the bug juice 15 months ago when I allowed myself to be scammed into ownership of the G1, and if anyone is crazy enough to fall for the Nexus scam, don't say I didn't warn you.
Wait 12-18 months. Let some other asshole be the first one to test-drive the Nexus. Whatever the tech world learns from the Nexus will undoubtedly be rolled into later generations of Android-based smart phones. The future of Android as a mobile platform is unlimited, and as I've posted on TechDirt before, I stand in awe of the brilliant minds who are writing some incredible Android applications.
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Google's customers are its advertisers. So it has never really had a need to provide customer service to its users. That's obviously changing. If Google is going to sell phones and provide office software and expect users to use those products and services, eventually it will have to start providing support.
I think one of the reasons people think of Google so favorably is because for the longest time we've been users and never had to actually contact Google directly, in comparison to companies such as cell phone and satellite companies, who are universally reviled.
This is a turning point for Google. Now that it expects its users to also be customers, let's see how much longer the Google love-fest will last. My guess is that it won't last very long. Providing customer service is expensive. Providing quality customer service is really expensive and is very difficult. The balance between giving your service employees enough power to actually solve problems, without having them give too much away at great costs, is nearly impossible. Even Apple doesn't get it right every time.
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Re:
Wanted to add: I wasn't in need of any formal tech support with the G1, and all of my questions were answered with a Google search and the very useful message forum T-Mobile set up. I also networked with some incredibly cool independent web groups devoted to hacking and tweaking of the G1. Much of the information in the user manual that came with the phone was outdated and incorrect, including how to turn some basic features on and off. The internet was the missing link, at least for me, as a first-generation G1 user.
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Re: Get Big Enough and Everyone Hates You
Um...I feel like I should get off your lawn.
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Re: Customer Service?
Uh, customers are what generate money for a business from start to finish. They don't only become a problem when they leave in droves - good customer service is one of the things that can make a business succeed in the first place. It's integral to the entire process. The whole "they only care about money" thing is just sensationalism - yes: their primary goal is growth, and customers = growth
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Welcome! Enjoy my lawn!
Hehe, nah, he has a bit of a point. For some of us, a smartphone still isn't worth it - especially for me in Canada where our data rates are outrageous. I'm rarely so far from WiFi that I need more than a cheap flip-phone and my iPod Touch. Don't get me wrong: I get iPhone envy all the time, but I can't justify the expense. I suppose it would probably be a different story if I was south of the border, though.
In many ways I still really, really do like having a cheap phone that I treat with total disregard (the little LG flips are surprisingly durable) and use only for phone calls and short texts.
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Not wrong
"Uh, customers are what generate money for a business from start to finish. They don't only become a problem when they leave in droves - good customer service is one of the things that can make a business succeed in the first place. It's integral to the entire process. The whole "they only care about money" thing is just sensationalism - yes: their primary goal is growth, and customers = growth"
Yes, and you are correct. But what you are describing is what SHOULD be, how companies SHOULD behave. They dont. They only do - ONLY - when it impacts their bottom line. Until then, they use, abuse, and take advantage of the consumer at every turn. This goes in direct proportion to the size of the company, which is why you see more of the better behavior in small companies than it large corps. The larger they get, the less they care about those who got them there, and more about just money.
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Apparently this one of many effects which result from the MBAs taking over.
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Try submitting a bug report
Yep, Google's "free" products seem great, but try getting support. As an example, I have found a real, repeatable, and fairly large bug in Picasa for Windows. Other users in the Picasa forums have confirmed the problem.
I was shocked to find there is no way to submit a problem report or a bug report. The best you can do is post your problem and hope that someone from Google acknowledges it.
I've had similar issues with Google voice.
Their products are great, but you get what you pay for.
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Re:
Thanks for rebutting. Not that it is happening at Google, but I know, it is another mess altogether.
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Re:
I still remember reading the "Inherent" Rules of Corporate Behavior which wasn't.
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but giving customer service is annoying
I use Google, and I like it, with some reservations. I think the deal here is pretty simple.
They figure, we offer free stuff, so screw supporting it. If you don't believe me, try contacting Google.. even if you can find it 12 screens deep, getting a response is very unlikely.
After all, customer service is annoying AND expensive, so they just don't bother! :) But with an expensive product like the phone, I KNEW they'd get a rude customer service awakening. Those Google people are awfully smart, but maybe not smart enough to prepare for the inevitable backlash (and like many smart people, they drink the Koolaid and think they're invincible).
They had terrible customer service reviews on Google checkout, too. Maybe they figure their little geniuses will code their way out of any problem so they can still avoid having any customer service. Slick, they are!
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Re: Customer Service?
Actually it's, Could NOT Care Less. ;)
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Google Customer Service
I have been trying order a Nexus One for a bit, but I wont get into the whole ordeal. I do think its funny that when you call T-Mobile; they will call HTC for you and say "send an email to Google". When you call HTC they will take down your information (apparently they're gathering complaints to report to Google.), and tell you to email Google. You search on the Forums and see people begging for Google to post something dealing with their problems. You can try emailing Google, but they will tell you up front you may not get an answer but they will read it. It's Google version of "we are taking this matter very seriously".
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Re: Welcome! Enjoy my lawn!
No, no. I agree. There are people to whom I would recommend the Jitterbug phone: loud speaker, fake dialtone, big buttons, easy to use.
The most simple tech products (of no tech products) are absolutely appropriate for certain market segments.
...but those segments do correlate with the "get off my lawn" set.
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frustration
My website is going to be cancelled because google has made a mistake on my credit card billing and the link they keep sending me to input correct info doesn't work. I called customer service hoping to talk to a human and was told there is not phone support. I guess thet don't care about losing customers and frankly I am so fed up with Google i really don't care either, but i don't want my credit affected. Does anyone have any ideas?
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