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Google is running a free service and have limited resources for customer support. I think everyone understands that. But why can't they make better use of tha

Google is running a free service and have limited resources for customer support. I think everyone understands that. But why can't they make better use of that support using algorithms and data analysis? For example, they probably get thousands of requests for account assistance. But they have full access to the emails in the account. And related metadata like age of account, volume of emails, other services used (Android apps released, Youtube videos created), and others. It should be simple to create an algorithm to prioritize the requests. So if an account was created a week ago and doesn't have much history? Low priority. An account is 10+ years old and has regular bank statement emails incoming? Highest priority. And if that's too much work, just provide a paid option. Tell users that if their issue is really important, then pay some amount (such as $50) to get immediate urgent support. The user with a one week old account won't care enough to pay. The spam scammers obviously won't pay. But the user with all bank accounts, brokerage accounts, other important services going through their gmail account? They will likely pay to get assistance. Instead every account gets the same shitty treatment. They could easily identify the important accounts to look into first using data analysis and algorithms. They're supposed to be good at this stuff! Or provide a paid option. Or do both. Only explanation I can think of is that it doesn't look good enough for a promotion so nobody at Google cares.

gaogao 6y ago
Google does actually have a paid option. Buying extra storage space for Gmail and Google Drive (Google One) is theoretically supposed to come with support, as one of their touted features.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  Aside from Google One, there is also GSuite: https://gsuite.google.com/ https://gsuite.google.com/ I pay for a personal google account there. It gives me the peace of mind everyone's talking about. And I get customer support when I need it.
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    Have you ever used that support?
    - markdown 6y ago
      I have. Multiple times, both for my personal account as well as the accounts of clients that I manage. In fact I just used support yesterday (a Sunday in Fiji, the weekend everywhere) to help migrate a client from Google to a local Google Reseller (so they could get invoiced in the local currency). My total monthly spend with Google (between myself and my clients) is relatively tiny (under $100 USD). In my experience, the support has always been stellar. Starts with chat (which I prefer), but if that isn't enough to resolve the issue, it gets escalated to a higher level and an offer for them to call me. I live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        > In fact I just used support yesterday (a Sunday in Fiji, the weekend everywhere) to help migrate a client from Google to a local Google Reseller (so they could get invoiced in the local currency). Haha, I last used it for the same reason :) What a dumb system that is… But overall I've had success with GSuite support yes. I mean, I've not often needed it, but part of it is knowing that it is there in case my account does get fucked with. Huge reassurance.
  - minton 6y ago
    There are drawbacks to G Suite not being considered a personal account. For example, you can’t use a G Suite account with Google’s Nest.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      I admittedly don't have a Nest, but I've encountered extremely few limitations in my day-to-day usage of GSuite as my sole google account. The only one I can think of from the top of my head is, asking "ok google, when is my next meeting" gives me an error about gsuite not being supported (yet).
WWLink 6y ago
lol google's "make new product to get promoted" thing seems hella toxic.
Guest0918231 6y ago
They really don't seem to care. I run a site with AdSense. Google makes about 20k a year in commission from my site. I get zero support. 1. My ad clicks went from a steady 500 a day to 1-5 a day and my revenues plummeted. I contacted Google. After one month of of being passed around they tell me they're not allowed to disclose what's wrong, but I can try labeling my ads as "Advertisements" on my site. One month of waiting for that response. 2. Recently Google started clawing back 50% of my monthly earnings at the end of the month. It's typically 0-10%. However, it just jumped to 50% the last couple of months. So they give me daily reports that I'm earning $150 per day, and then at the end of the month they just say nope, we're actually going to only give you half of that revenue. Oh, and we can't tell you why, that's confidential. I searched online and found lots of people recently reporting 30-80% of their revenues are being taken away. No one can get a reply from Google. What's even worse, I use header bidding. So someone opens my site, Google says they'll pay X to show an advertisement to that user, they outbid my other networks, and then a month later they say they can't actually pay that price. Meanwhile, my other ad networks could have shown an ad, but Google outbid them with a price they're not willing to pay. 3. I tried to setup an in house advertisement the other day using Google DoubleClick. The idea is that I create an ad for my Patreon page, and if none of the ad networks I run can pay more than X for that impression, then it shows my Patreon advertisement. Well, Google says Patreon is malvertising, and they won't let me run a display advertisement on my own site, linking to my own Patreon page. What does that notification say in the ad manager? It says they can't disclose any additional information and not to contact them. This company is a joke. They've collected at least 100k in commission from me, and I get zero support. I'd like to fix that issue resulting in half of my revenue being taken away each month. Nope, no one I can talk with, and if I do talk with anyone, they can't disclose that information or what ad unit is the source of the issue. I need to try making a change, and then cross my fingers that one month later I don't lose most of my revenue. It would probably take a year to understand the issue with monthly experiments. Anyway, I'm in the process of removing Google from my life now. I have zero respect for that company.
- 300bps 6y ago
  A lot of people have Google horror stories like this. I’ve had a gmail account since early beta. I upgraded to their $10 per month for 1 tb storage (which they recently increased to 2 tb). I recently got a better deal from Microsoft so want to switch. So over a week ago I deleted my entire Google Drive. Except it put everything into the Google Drive “trash” that still counts against me. I immediately emptied the trash except that literally did nothing that I could tell. Then, about 100 GB per day has been freeing up from the trash for the last week and a half. I can’t cancel the extra storage until this is complete or I’ll stop receiving email on my gmail account. At the snail’s pace that it’s freeing up storage on my Google Drive from the trash they’ll be charging me another month. It’s ridiculous. And as a paying customer there’s no practical way to contact them.
hoseja 6y ago
I think it's just cheaper for them to not care.
hkai 6y ago
Imagine the hate Google will get if they charged $50 for support. People will say it's a 1 month earnings in some countries.

gaogao 6y ago

Google does actually have a paid option. Buying extra storage space for Gmail and Google Drive (Google One) is theoretically supposed to come with support, as one of their touted features.

scrollaway 6y ago
Aside from Google One, there is also GSuite: https://gsuite.google.com/ https://gsuite.google.com/ I pay for a personal google account there. It gives me the peace of mind everyone's talking about. And I get customer support when I need it.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  Have you ever used that support?
  - markdown 6y ago
    I have. Multiple times, both for my personal account as well as the accounts of clients that I manage. In fact I just used support yesterday (a Sunday in Fiji, the weekend everywhere) to help migrate a client from Google to a local Google Reseller (so they could get invoiced in the local currency). My total monthly spend with Google (between myself and my clients) is relatively tiny (under $100 USD). In my experience, the support has always been stellar. Starts with chat (which I prefer), but if that isn't enough to resolve the issue, it gets escalated to a higher level and an offer for them to call me. I live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      > In fact I just used support yesterday (a Sunday in Fiji, the weekend everywhere) to help migrate a client from Google to a local Google Reseller (so they could get invoiced in the local currency). Haha, I last used it for the same reason :) What a dumb system that is… But overall I've had success with GSuite support yes. I mean, I've not often needed it, but part of it is knowing that it is there in case my account does get fucked with. Huge reassurance.
- minton 6y ago
  There are drawbacks to G Suite not being considered a personal account. For example, you can’t use a G Suite account with Google’s Nest.
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    I admittedly don't have a Nest, but I've encountered extremely few limitations in my day-to-day usage of GSuite as my sole google account. The only one I can think of from the top of my head is, asking "ok google, when is my next meeting" gives me an error about gsuite not being supported (yet).

WWLink 6y ago

lol google's "make new product to get promoted" thing seems hella toxic.

Guest0918231 6y ago

They really don't seem to care. I run a site with AdSense. Google makes about 20k a year in commission from my site. I get zero support. 1. My ad clicks went from a steady 500 a day to 1-5 a day and my revenues plummeted. I contacted Google. After one month of of being passed around they tell me they're not allowed to disclose what's wrong, but I can try labeling my ads as "Advertisements" on my site. One month of waiting for that response. 2. Recently Google started clawing back 50% of my monthly earnings at the end of the month. It's typically 0-10%. However, it just jumped to 50% the last couple of months. So they give me daily reports that I'm earning $150 per day, and then at the end of the month they just say nope, we're actually going to only give you half of that revenue. Oh, and we can't tell you why, that's confidential. I searched online and found lots of people recently reporting 30-80% of their revenues are being taken away. No one can get a reply from Google. What's even worse, I use header bidding. So someone opens my site, Google says they'll pay X to show an advertisement to that user, they outbid my other networks, and then a month later they say they can't actually pay that price. Meanwhile, my other ad networks could have shown an ad, but Google outbid them with a price they're not willing to pay. 3. I tried to setup an in house advertisement the other day using Google DoubleClick. The idea is that I create an ad for my Patreon page, and if none of the ad networks I run can pay more than X for that impression, then it shows my Patreon advertisement. Well, Google says Patreon is malvertising, and they won't let me run a display advertisement on my own site, linking to my own Patreon page. What does that notification say in the ad manager? It says they can't disclose any additional information and not to contact them. This company is a joke. They've collected at least 100k in commission from me, and I get zero support. I'd like to fix that issue resulting in half of my revenue being taken away each month. Nope, no one I can talk with, and if I do talk with anyone, they can't disclose that information or what ad unit is the source of the issue. I need to try making a change, and then cross my fingers that one month later I don't lose most of my revenue. It would probably take a year to understand the issue with monthly experiments. Anyway, I'm in the process of removing Google from my life now. I have zero respect for that company.

300bps 6y ago
A lot of people have Google horror stories like this. I’ve had a gmail account since early beta. I upgraded to their $10 per month for 1 tb storage (which they recently increased to 2 tb). I recently got a better deal from Microsoft so want to switch. So over a week ago I deleted my entire Google Drive. Except it put everything into the Google Drive “trash” that still counts against me. I immediately emptied the trash except that literally did nothing that I could tell. Then, about 100 GB per day has been freeing up from the trash for the last week and a half. I can’t cancel the extra storage until this is complete or I’ll stop receiving email on my gmail account. At the snail’s pace that it’s freeing up storage on my Google Drive from the trash they’ll be charging me another month. It’s ridiculous. And as a paying customer there’s no practical way to contact them.

hoseja 6y ago

I think it's just cheaper for them to not care.

hkai 6y ago

Imagine the hate Google will get if they charged $50 for support. People will say it's a 1 month earnings in some countries.