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It continues to amaze me that a company as technically brilliant and pervasive as Google is so spectacularly bad at even rudimentary customer service.

latch 16y ago
Really? I don't see the two as being remotely related. In fact, I'm tempted to say that google's technical brilliance is likely the reason for their poor customer service. What is amazing is that a company as large and with as many products as Google - regardless of its technical prowess - hasn't set up the necessary customer service infrastructure yet.
- paulgb 16y ago
  I think it's also amazing that, in a decade of using many Google products and APIs, I've never needed to contact support.
  - boredguy8 16y ago
    Exactly this. And I hope Google doesn't shift to making a customer service infrastructure take much more of their time than it already does. I mean, think about a 'problem' explanation like this post: "My e-mail is running slower than it used to, and other people with a similar usage profile aren't having the same problem." It's hard to get much more vague than that without trying. I really don't want someone to have to clarify that problem statement then spend hours trying to reproduce the problem. The one time I had a clearly defined problem that I could reproduce (this was with a Google Mini), a post in the forums got me an answer within 4 hours. For everything else, peer support has always been sufficient (or, if not, a clear statement of what reproduces the problem usually gets a Google response).
    - mstevens 16y ago
      My experience (google docs API problem), was that I could provide sample code that looked like it ought to work, but actually triggered an internal server error from google, was on a paid support contract, and it wasn't resolved for about 9 months, with months often passing between google responses to my email on the subject.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    Ditto, my money is on Google having poor customer support because the vast, vast majority of user issues are user caused. From what I've seen with friends, all of their issues with gmail have been user caused.
charlesju 16y ago
There is no way Google can scale customer service to be profitable for free services. Gmail at the end of the day is a free service, and you should either (a) pick a different email provider or (b) setup shop yourself if you need that kind of service.
- icey 16y ago
  Is there any software out there that handles spam as well as Gmail's spam filter? The rest of the features that Gmail offers seem like they'd be hard to replicate as well - I'm talking about the cool stuff like being able to put arbitrary periods in your email address, or adding +whatever to the end of it. I really like Gmail today, but if there were a way to replicate all the nice things it does on a server I controlled that would be pretty sweet.
  - mattmcknight 16y ago
    Too many of the nice things it does can't be done on "a server" you control.
    - blueben 16y ago
      Aside from the UI, what can't be replicated?
  - Terretta 16y ago
    Out of curiosity, why? Does your cost calculation include opportunity cost of time? If Google does it well, why would you want to spend your time on duplicating that instead of spending your time on your own original skill?
    - icey 16y ago
      Mostly because I want to see how it works. That and I can't shake the fear that one day my Google account will be locked for some mysterious reason and I'll be stuck without any of my email until I can figure out how to get it turned back on. I don't have the advantage of being a blogger, and that seems to be the only reliable way to get customer service from Google.
kevinelliott 16y ago
The Google AdSense customer support team has been very quick to respond to my inquiries over the years. This is probably attributed to being one of their direcly profiting products, perhaps.

latch 16y ago

Really? I don't see the two as being remotely related. In fact, I'm tempted to say that google's technical brilliance is likely the reason for their poor customer service. What is amazing is that a company as large and with as many products as Google - regardless of its technical prowess - hasn't set up the necessary customer service infrastructure yet.

paulgb 16y ago
I think it's also amazing that, in a decade of using many Google products and APIs, I've never needed to contact support.
- boredguy8 16y ago
  Exactly this. And I hope Google doesn't shift to making a customer service infrastructure take much more of their time than it already does. I mean, think about a 'problem' explanation like this post: "My e-mail is running slower than it used to, and other people with a similar usage profile aren't having the same problem." It's hard to get much more vague than that without trying. I really don't want someone to have to clarify that problem statement then spend hours trying to reproduce the problem. The one time I had a clearly defined problem that I could reproduce (this was with a Google Mini), a post in the forums got me an answer within 4 hours. For everything else, peer support has always been sufficient (or, if not, a clear statement of what reproduces the problem usually gets a Google response).
  - mstevens 16y ago
    My experience (google docs API problem), was that I could provide sample code that looked like it ought to work, but actually triggered an internal server error from google, was on a paid support contract, and it wasn't resolved for about 9 months, with months often passing between google responses to my email on the subject.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  Ditto, my money is on Google having poor customer support because the vast, vast majority of user issues are user caused. From what I've seen with friends, all of their issues with gmail have been user caused.

charlesju 16y ago

There is no way Google can scale customer service to be profitable for free services. Gmail at the end of the day is a free service, and you should either (a) pick a different email provider or (b) setup shop yourself if you need that kind of service.

icey 16y ago
Is there any software out there that handles spam as well as Gmail's spam filter? The rest of the features that Gmail offers seem like they'd be hard to replicate as well - I'm talking about the cool stuff like being able to put arbitrary periods in your email address, or adding +whatever to the end of it. I really like Gmail today, but if there were a way to replicate all the nice things it does on a server I controlled that would be pretty sweet.
- mattmcknight 16y ago
  Too many of the nice things it does can't be done on "a server" you control.
  - blueben 16y ago
    Aside from the UI, what can't be replicated?
- Terretta 16y ago
  Out of curiosity, why? Does your cost calculation include opportunity cost of time? If Google does it well, why would you want to spend your time on duplicating that instead of spending your time on your own original skill?
  - icey 16y ago
    Mostly because I want to see how it works. That and I can't shake the fear that one day my Google account will be locked for some mysterious reason and I'll be stuck without any of my email until I can figure out how to get it turned back on. I don't have the advantage of being a blogger, and that seems to be the only reliable way to get customer service from Google.

kevinelliott 16y ago

The Google AdSense customer support team has been very quick to respond to my inquiries over the years. This is probably attributed to being one of their direcly profiting products, perhaps.