3 ms·

I'd have thought the real answer is that the people expecting customer support are under the delusion they are the customer when in reality they are the product

I'd have thought the real answer is that the people expecting customer support are under the delusion they are the customer when in reality they are the product.

vezycash 8y ago
Delusion? Not everyone reads tech articles like you. Bugs & freak accidents happen that aren't the fault of users. Without support, you'd frustrate, and anger such users. Normally, angry users leave and never return. But monopolies with considerable lock in like Google...? On my first eBay purchase, I bought two quantities of a 3m usb cord. PayPal deducted my money and my PayPal dashboard showed transaction successful. On the other hand, my eBay dashboard was still nagging me to pay for what I'd already paid for. Both eBay and PayPal make it extremely difficult to reach support. After days of search, I eventually found PayPal email (it isnt on my account). They quickly responded and asked me to tell the seller to check their PayPal account or message PayPal for assistance. Seller didn't. Insisted that I only paid for a single item instead of two. I tweeted to eBay, Facebook messaged em - no response. Wrote on their wall, it was automatically deleted. Wrote on their wall again a few days later and got a response. The support person was surprised by their error and fixed it. Now tell me, which FAQ would have helped in this situation?
- Digit-Al 8y ago
  Sounds like an awful experience. Glad you did get successful resolution eventually. I was really talking about the likes of Facebook, Google, etc... I would say that you are a customer of eBay and PayPal (although the eBay case could be arguable) and definitely PayPal should make resolution better as they are actually handling people's money - which is a whole new ballgame. But really, come on, if you are getting a whole lot of useful services for free, expecting support when things go wrong is surely a bit greedy. In this world you get what you pay for, and if you pay sweet FA you can surely expect no more than sweet FA in return. It would possibly be useful if they provided a paid tier that guaranteed swift resolution if something goes wrong, but we've all been so conditioned to expect everything for nothing now that they probably wouldn't get enough takers to make it worthwhile offering it. Anyway, the whole thing is a mess and a hugely complicated subject. I could probably go on boring you with my thoughts on it for ages more, but I'll spare you any more :-)
konschubert 8y ago
Even if you insist on calling them cattle, you may still want cattle support to keep the herd happy and productive. So this isn't really a relevant point here. Though if we talk about customer lifetime value of one customer vs the cost of support, we might get close to an answer why they don't offer support.
nokya 8y ago
I agree with you but the way you express this is still too distant from each individual's experience for the audience to actually understand it. I tried above in another comment but I suspect I will get the same answers that you received...
- Digit-Al 8y ago
  Probably a better way, as I replied to a previous poster, is "you get what you pay for; so if you pay sweet FA why should you expect to get more than sweet FA?" I think most people would understand that :-)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

I'd have thought the real answer is that the people expecting customer support are under the delusion they are the customer when in reality they are the product.

vezycash 8y ago

Delusion? Not everyone reads tech articles like you. Bugs & freak accidents happen that aren't the fault of users. Without support, you'd frustrate, and anger such users. Normally, angry users leave and never return. But monopolies with considerable lock in like Google...? On my first eBay purchase, I bought two quantities of a 3m usb cord. PayPal deducted my money and my PayPal dashboard showed transaction successful. On the other hand, my eBay dashboard was still nagging me to pay for what I'd already paid for. Both eBay and PayPal make it extremely difficult to reach support. After days of search, I eventually found PayPal email (it isnt on my account). They quickly responded and asked me to tell the seller to check their PayPal account or message PayPal for assistance. Seller didn't. Insisted that I only paid for a single item instead of two. I tweeted to eBay, Facebook messaged em - no response. Wrote on their wall, it was automatically deleted. Wrote on their wall again a few days later and got a response. The support person was surprised by their error and fixed it. Now tell me, which FAQ would have helped in this situation?

Digit-Al 8y ago
Sounds like an awful experience. Glad you did get successful resolution eventually. I was really talking about the likes of Facebook, Google, etc... I would say that you are a customer of eBay and PayPal (although the eBay case could be arguable) and definitely PayPal should make resolution better as they are actually handling people's money - which is a whole new ballgame. But really, come on, if you are getting a whole lot of useful services for free, expecting support when things go wrong is surely a bit greedy. In this world you get what you pay for, and if you pay sweet FA you can surely expect no more than sweet FA in return. It would possibly be useful if they provided a paid tier that guaranteed swift resolution if something goes wrong, but we've all been so conditioned to expect everything for nothing now that they probably wouldn't get enough takers to make it worthwhile offering it. Anyway, the whole thing is a mess and a hugely complicated subject. I could probably go on boring you with my thoughts on it for ages more, but I'll spare you any more :-)

konschubert 8y ago

Even if you insist on calling them cattle, you may still want cattle support to keep the herd happy and productive. So this isn't really a relevant point here. Though if we talk about customer lifetime value of one customer vs the cost of support, we might get close to an answer why they don't offer support.

nokya 8y ago

I agree with you but the way you express this is still too distant from each individual's experience for the audience to actually understand it. I tried above in another comment but I suspect I will get the same answers that you received...

Digit-Al 8y ago
Probably a better way, as I replied to a previous poster, is "you get what you pay for; so if you pay sweet FA why should you expect to get more than sweet FA?" I think most people would understand that :-)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]