6 ms·

For those who have worked at Facebook - why in the world are their policies like this? Why is customer support so... unfriendly and unhelpful? No escalations p

by tibbon 5y ago

For those who have worked at Facebook - why in the world are their policies like this? Why is customer support so... unfriendly and unhelpful? No escalations possible? No way to reach anyone?

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
My guess is money. Facebook has such a MASSIVE user base. And people are getting accounts stolen a LOT, from either social engineering or password reuse. But there's also a ton of people knowingly breaking rules, getting banned, and then trying to cry that their account was hacked. Trying to differentiate between someone's account being taken over and abused versus someone just simply being abusive and lying about it to support costs a lot of time, and time is money. And with the scale of Facebook, that adds up to a LOT of money. You have to train a large staff to understand social engineering and be able to tell the difference between someone who actually can't figure out how to log in, versus a jealous ex who is trying to social engineer their way into someone else's account. It's a lot cheaper to just let the bans stick, even if it loses a few customers.
dredmorbius 5y ago
3 billion active users. If 0.1% have account issues in a year, that's 8,200 support tickets per day. If each of those takes 20 minutes to resolve, then you'd need 115 support techs ... for three shifts, or about 350 total. Oh, and covering several languages. I'm guessing my 0.1% issue rate is low by a factor of 10--100. Resolution time may also be generous. Increase all other values correspondingly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- croes 5y ago
  10 billions profit a year, seems like enough money for user support
  - jedimastert 5y ago
    Short answer: they lose less money from people getting frustrated than the massive cost of real support
    - croes 5y ago
      Maybe they would have more users with real support.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        It's literally cheaper for them to buy new services, aquire the low-cost users through those, and wash out the support-dependent ones. The Whatsapp purchase worked out to about $30/user, though proably factored in both further growth and the potential competitive risk.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Facebook's ARPU is about $25/year. https://www.thegoodestate.com/facebook-arpu/ https://www.thegoodestate.com/facebook-arpu/ An enterprise software company I was closely familiar with in the 1990s budgeted about $50/call for user support. Mind that was 20+ years ago, and it was enterprise, rather than end-user support. But odds are strong that one service call per user eats up all, or multiples of, the actual worth of that user to Facebook. Cutting the account loose may well be the rational choice for the company. ARPU varies by region. Within the US it's closer to $110/yr, in Europe, $35/yr, Asia & Pacific, $10/yr. Expect that support offerings are going to be measured against that, though possibly with a consideration as well to future growth and economic development. At $25/call and servicing 1% of users/year, that's $750 million in support alone. If the cost or rates are doubled ... the maths are pretty easy.
rvba 5y ago
"Customer support" is someone in third world paid 1 dollar per hour, who barely speaks English and does not care about anything - nobody reviews quality of their work, and even if quality is reviewed, they are fired, but nobody reviews "old cases". Probably some person randomly clicking "accept" and "deny". Other question is, why there is no escalation; even paid one. Although probably everyone would escalate.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
ok so on the flip side... why should they? they've become enormously successful without customer support

by tibbon 5y ago

For those who have worked at Facebook - why in the world are their policies like this? Why is customer support so... unfriendly and unhelpful? No escalations possible? No way to reach anyone?

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago

My guess is money. Facebook has such a MASSIVE user base. And people are getting accounts stolen a LOT, from either social engineering or password reuse. But there's also a ton of people knowingly breaking rules, getting banned, and then trying to cry that their account was hacked. Trying to differentiate between someone's account being taken over and abused versus someone just simply being abusive and lying about it to support costs a lot of time, and time is money. And with the scale of Facebook, that adds up to a LOT of money. You have to train a large staff to understand social engineering and be able to tell the difference between someone who actually can't figure out how to log in, versus a jealous ex who is trying to social engineer their way into someone else's account. It's a lot cheaper to just let the bans stick, even if it loses a few customers.

dredmorbius 5y ago

3 billion active users. If 0.1% have account issues in a year, that's 8,200 support tickets per day. If each of those takes 20 minutes to resolve, then you'd need 115 support techs ... for three shifts, or about 350 total. Oh, and covering several languages. I'm guessing my 0.1% issue rate is low by a factor of 10--100. Resolution time may also be generous. Increase all other values correspondingly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
croes 5y ago
10 billions profit a year, seems like enough money for user support
- jedimastert 5y ago
  Short answer: they lose less money from people getting frustrated than the massive cost of real support
  - croes 5y ago
    Maybe they would have more users with real support.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      It's literally cheaper for them to buy new services, aquire the low-cost users through those, and wash out the support-dependent ones. The Whatsapp purchase worked out to about $30/user, though proably factored in both further growth and the potential competitive risk.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Facebook's ARPU is about $25/year. https://www.thegoodestate.com/facebook-arpu/ https://www.thegoodestate.com/facebook-arpu/ An enterprise software company I was closely familiar with in the 1990s budgeted about $50/call for user support. Mind that was 20+ years ago, and it was enterprise, rather than end-user support. But odds are strong that one service call per user eats up all, or multiples of, the actual worth of that user to Facebook. Cutting the account loose may well be the rational choice for the company. ARPU varies by region. Within the US it's closer to $110/yr, in Europe, $35/yr, Asia & Pacific, $10/yr. Expect that support offerings are going to be measured against that, though possibly with a consideration as well to future growth and economic development. At $25/call and servicing 1% of users/year, that's $750 million in support alone. If the cost or rates are doubled ... the maths are pretty easy.

rvba 5y ago

"Customer support" is someone in third world paid 1 dollar per hour, who barely speaks English and does not care about anything - nobody reviews quality of their work, and even if quality is reviewed, they are fired, but nobody reviews "old cases". Probably some person randomly clicking "accept" and "deny". Other question is, why there is no escalation; even paid one. Although probably everyone would escalate.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

ok so on the flip side... why should they? they've become enormously successful without customer support