RSS
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.
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.
I’m looking for policy...
Policy Resources: Data Privacy & Security
Developers On Patents: Five Employees, Six Lawyers
I have a business...
Why 50,000 Monthly Active Users Weren't Enough To Stop This Company From Pivoting, With Spun Co-Founder Scott Lindenbaum
How To Successfully Get Your App Into China
I have an app...
How My First Game Made $28,623
Top 5 Reasons Why Mobile Analytics Is Important
Reader Comments (rss)
(Flattened / Threaded)
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Hmmm
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Google Is IVR or .com
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Customer Service?
This is true in ALL cases.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Customer Service?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Customer Service?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Sony Timer
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/01/secret-sony-timer-kills-products-after-warranty/
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
You are correct and funny
You are correct. Google wants to automate everything. The Google model has no place for customer service reps.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Get Big Enough and Everyone Hates You
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Get Big Enough and Everyone Hates You
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Welcome! Enjoy my lawn!
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Welcome! Enjoy my lawn!
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Communications companies can't communicate.
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?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Not wrong
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Try submitting a bug report
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.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
but giving customer service is annoying
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!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Google Customer Service
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
frustration
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
customer service
Good luck!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Customer Service
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
poor direction maps
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Google is Hopeless!
Whether it is trademark infringement issues, Google checkout problems or Adword issues Google customer service comes up lacking every time. I even phoned them up once to be told by an anonymous member of staff that it wasn't Google's policy to give out their names!
I had an amusing conversation yesterday with someone who claimed that Android was the Linux of the mobile phone community and that its open-ness would be Apples undoing. I nearly choked on my beer when he told me this - The truth of the matter is that there has been little transparency between Google and developers and quite honestly Android might as well be a closed OS!
So when it comes time to for most customers to replace their iPhone are they going to place themselves in the hands of Google's or stay with Apple's reasonably efficient (if closed) alternative - I think you already know the answer!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
google poor service
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
removal of google material
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
cost for advice
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
google's customer service page
googlecustomerservice.com
check it out
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Google customer service
The vendor was not approved by them, the vendor now does not have my money and Google has no phone number to resolve the issue. They make a lot of $ holding onto refunds that they do not process for weeks. Order date 11/05...still no certificate or refund.
This is fraudulent to take money for vendors not even approved and make the customer wait to see if Google will approve, in the meantime Google has my $. UGH
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
I hate Google
They suck at customer service. They won't reply to emails sent from help pages. They don't put up phone numbers for most of the countries they are present in. If you somehow find their office phone number, they would lie that it's not a Google office (true story-I don't know why they do it). And the worst is you are stuck to them and the traffic they send to you - and they make you feel it!
This is worst-practice B2B. I just hate doing business with them. Way to go 'do-no-evil' !!!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Terrible service from Google
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
password on gmail
gmail. I tried to go in to Gmail, told me my password is wrong. How can this be. I have my gmail going into my regular email. And I am not geeting my email now. Why/please let me know.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Whoever has the gold makes the rules
The only way we the people can make our voice be heard is to simply stop using Google.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Google Penguin
I am no longer listed for some terms on Google at all. Google will not respond by email and will not let any call go past an operator. I understand that it may take up to six months to fix this.
Guess I need to close up shop. Thanks Google.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Googles Poors services
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
I purchased Google's Nexus 7 tablet from the Canadian Google branch online and what a mistake that was and I have never seen such a poor and non-existent service from any retailer. They basically have no phone number, no customer service specially in Canada as though they are not to abide by consumer protection laws in other countries although they have registered in Canada. I believe that they only way a human being working for Google can be reached by phone in Canada is through the courts. By being a massive company with racks of lawyers, the consumer will even hard time with a court claim.
Their head office in Canada does not pick up their phones at all. Their American branch which has produced this tablets as a Google product refuses to even accept it as their product or take responsibility for defective screens that are well documented to be prone to cracking spontaneously and they are still selling them to their unsuspecting customers and excluding the likely to be defective parts from warranty. Google has designed its retailing operation to skim the profits and pass the losses to the buyer or manufacture by taking no responsibility for selling the defective products although it is responsible an only the entity that highest power over the nature of product that it has ordered. If Google was selling cars with defective transmissions, the cars would not have been recalled.
I would avoid buying any product that may need support from Google in the role of both supplier and retailer. What I have also learned before buying a gadget, to call the manufacturer to find out whether they have service center for that item within driving distance OR I would make sure that you get extended warranties that have no exemptions so I would account for the cost will escalation before buying those gadgets.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Add Your Comment