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I decided to escalate support with a major multi billion dollar tech company in a unique way... I took a one-way plane ticket to the city of their HQ, went to t

I decided to escalate support with a major multi billion dollar tech company in a unique way... I took a one-way plane ticket to the city of their HQ, went to the front desk, then when I was rebuffed, i escalated my issues to a major news outlet. .. I also considered Facebook live right in front of their headquarters on public property, but fortunately didn't need to... I was very polite about everything... Never demanding or angry- always expressing gratitude for the incredible opportunity I had with this company! Amazingly, my unorthodox escalation procedure worked-- I wasn't sure if it would. My point in writing this is to say- great job thinking outside the box! Even if you can't fly to Google HQ, continue to think outside the box. Some ideas include Hire someone at taskrabbit or Craigslist, or a FB jobs page, to go to their front desk, or if unsuccessful, to hold a sign on public property in front of Google's HQ, you can get a banner or sign professionally made (online process are pretty reasonably priced). You could Skype with your stand-in. It would be really fun to get a Skype video call on a big iPad... or try something else. Everybody thought I was crazy. I was. Crazy people get noticed, and often get results. Whatever the outcome, being able to tell an awesome story is always fun! Good luck, mate!

ehnto 7y ago
I had a PM who's support strategy was to complain directly to the company's twitter handle. Apparently the people who run the social media accounts sit higher in the org chart than support staff because it almost always got us a faster response.
- bmiller2 7y ago
  100% yes. Works with almost everything. Trash guys missed your bin? Blow em up on Twitter. Cable company shrinking your bandwidth? Blow em up. Instant results
- repairisntcheap 7y ago
  Nice... I think this is often good a good strategy, but super big companies like Google have a lot of noise on Twitter. Opening up your own, unique, support channel, like this company has done can sometimes be more successful because everyone loves a great story.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Trying this with PayPal right now. Did not work so far.
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    Worked for me, someone there called me up pretty quickly. Make sure you're messaging @askpaypal
    - martin_a 7y ago
      Yeah, I tried @askpaypal, will try again.
- Yizahi 7y ago
  I dislike Twitter but last few years but I'm really tempted to register there just for such "support" functionality. Because so far exactly no company has ever replied to me from their support emails. It's like they lead directly to /dev/null.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  Also because companies are absolutely terrified of something negative going viral. It's why they instantly ask you to DM them to take all discussion out of public view. It's amazing what a simple tweet can get you when all else fails (unless it's frontier com., then they straight up block you).
  - dzhiurgis 7y ago
    Didn’t work at all with Air NZ for me. They had promotion on flights on their aussie website, but you can’t spend airpoints on aussie site. Same flight on NZ website was nearly 2x. Didn’t work with Wizzair when they changed my flight time, notified I don’t need to do anything and then charged 30€ for check in. Didn’t work with Air India - they don’t even have Twitter (just wanted to change my flight date and you can just imagine how bad their call center is).
    - CaptainMarvel 7y ago
      I’ve never had any success either, presumably because I have no followers on Twitter...
      - cosmie 7y ago
        Probably the first legitimate use case for those "buy a follower" services I've heard of. $20 worth of followers and you'll suddenly get priority support by their social media team. If only those services weren't seeded with compromised accounts, I wouldn't even feel bad about it.
    - trazire 7y ago
      Never use Air India.
      - dzhiurgis 7y ago
        Got tricked into their biz class for EU > Oceania flight. About half price. Don't care about fancy, just want to lay down when flying for such long periods. Flight is in couple of days, will see...
repairisntcheap 7y ago
Of course, if you can just get great press from targeted ads to Google, hopefully you don't have to be more creative to get someone's attention.
alex_duf 7y ago
It seems that the situation is pretty bad when cloud providers are so big they don't care about individual customers. We're all joking about how creative you and the person mentioned in the article were. It seems to have solved your issue and I'm happy for you. However as we're all praising the irony and derision, really we're all sad of how broken the system is. Happy to finally be noticed as a customer is not the way a customer service should be.
- funkidredd 7y ago
  It's not actually been resolved. Cunts. Source: am the bloke who this story is about.
  - kerng 7y ago
    This response is gold and informative. Lots of Google employees on HN who jump in defending everything Google does - so maybe your issue will get attention soon. Sorry though, that you are going through this.
    - taneq 7y ago
      That’s a major issue, though. They know these issues happen but they’re happy to let them slide unless they they gain sufficient attention on places like HN or reddit.
    - ethanwillis 7y ago
      This is one of many reasons why whenever a recruiter from Google/Amazon/Facebook tries to connect with me I tell them to never contact me again, because I don't want to work at some place that's so unethical.
  - zxv 7y ago
    It's helpful to have a chance to see hard it is to obtain an increase in Google API rate limits. The documentations suggests one only needs to ask, so this clarification is very much appreciated.
mschuster91 7y ago
A company I know has the problem that one of their Google accounts cannot be reset - no one knows when the account was created or which phone was used for 2nd factor, and email only is "not sufficient". They're resorting to a lawyer now and if the harshly worded letter is not enough they're gonna file for a court injunction ("einstweilige Verfügung") against Google, this should probably work. It's a pity that one cannot get paid support from Google and has to resort to expensive lawyers instead.
fred_is_fred 7y ago
> I took a one-way plane ticket to the city of their HQ So you live there now?

ehnto 7y ago

I had a PM who's support strategy was to complain directly to the company's twitter handle. Apparently the people who run the social media accounts sit higher in the org chart than support staff because it almost always got us a faster response.

bmiller2 7y ago
100% yes. Works with almost everything. Trash guys missed your bin? Blow em up on Twitter. Cable company shrinking your bandwidth? Blow em up. Instant results
repairisntcheap 7y ago
Nice... I think this is often good a good strategy, but super big companies like Google have a lot of noise on Twitter. Opening up your own, unique, support channel, like this company has done can sometimes be more successful because everyone loves a great story.
martin_a 7y ago
Trying this with PayPal right now. Did not work so far.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  Worked for me, someone there called me up pretty quickly. Make sure you're messaging @askpaypal
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Yeah, I tried @askpaypal, will try again.
Yizahi 7y ago
I dislike Twitter but last few years but I'm really tempted to register there just for such "support" functionality. Because so far exactly no company has ever replied to me from their support emails. It's like they lead directly to /dev/null.
dawnerd 7y ago
Also because companies are absolutely terrified of something negative going viral. It's why they instantly ask you to DM them to take all discussion out of public view. It's amazing what a simple tweet can get you when all else fails (unless it's frontier com., then they straight up block you).
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Didn’t work at all with Air NZ for me. They had promotion on flights on their aussie website, but you can’t spend airpoints on aussie site. Same flight on NZ website was nearly 2x. Didn’t work with Wizzair when they changed my flight time, notified I don’t need to do anything and then charged 30€ for check in. Didn’t work with Air India - they don’t even have Twitter (just wanted to change my flight date and you can just imagine how bad their call center is).
  - CaptainMarvel 7y ago
    I’ve never had any success either, presumably because I have no followers on Twitter...
    - cosmie 7y ago
      Probably the first legitimate use case for those "buy a follower" services I've heard of. $20 worth of followers and you'll suddenly get priority support by their social media team. If only those services weren't seeded with compromised accounts, I wouldn't even feel bad about it.
  - trazire 7y ago
    Never use Air India.
    - dzhiurgis 7y ago
      Got tricked into their biz class for EU > Oceania flight. About half price. Don't care about fancy, just want to lay down when flying for such long periods. Flight is in couple of days, will see...

repairisntcheap 7y ago

Of course, if you can just get great press from targeted ads to Google, hopefully you don't have to be more creative to get someone's attention.

alex_duf 7y ago

It seems that the situation is pretty bad when cloud providers are so big they don't care about individual customers. We're all joking about how creative you and the person mentioned in the article were. It seems to have solved your issue and I'm happy for you. However as we're all praising the irony and derision, really we're all sad of how broken the system is. Happy to finally be noticed as a customer is not the way a customer service should be.

funkidredd 7y ago
It's not actually been resolved. Cunts. Source: am the bloke who this story is about.
- kerng 7y ago
  This response is gold and informative. Lots of Google employees on HN who jump in defending everything Google does - so maybe your issue will get attention soon. Sorry though, that you are going through this.
  - taneq 7y ago
    That’s a major issue, though. They know these issues happen but they’re happy to let them slide unless they they gain sufficient attention on places like HN or reddit.
  - ethanwillis 7y ago
    This is one of many reasons why whenever a recruiter from Google/Amazon/Facebook tries to connect with me I tell them to never contact me again, because I don't want to work at some place that's so unethical.
- zxv 7y ago
  It's helpful to have a chance to see hard it is to obtain an increase in Google API rate limits. The documentations suggests one only needs to ask, so this clarification is very much appreciated.

mschuster91 7y ago

A company I know has the problem that one of their Google accounts cannot be reset - no one knows when the account was created or which phone was used for 2nd factor, and email only is "not sufficient". They're resorting to a lawyer now and if the harshly worded letter is not enough they're gonna file for a court injunction ("einstweilige Verfügung") against Google, this should probably work. It's a pity that one cannot get paid support from Google and has to resort to expensive lawyers instead.

fred_is_fred 7y ago

> I took a one-way plane ticket to the city of their HQ So you live there now?