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Google's fetish for not providing human support is so counter-productive it makes me think there must be a single powerful individual executive maintaining the
by Causality1 5y ago
Google's fetish for not providing human support is so counter-productive it makes me think there must be a single powerful individual executive maintaining the policy. It's too stupid to have widespread support among Googlers.
- Tenoke 5y agoFor what is worth, Drive as part of 'One' actually comes with support - I've been on live chat with them. They weren't super helpful overall but I was amazed I could get instant chat support in the first place from Google that I let it go.
- Avicebron 5y agoI imagine this theoretical powerful individual is rewarded handsomely for the decrease in "labor costs" presented quarter to quarter
- shadowgovt 5y agoIt doesn't exactly have widespread support; it's more that nobody can propose a better solution that doesn't blow the budget completely out of the water.
- falcor84 5y agoHere's one - how about allowing you to pay to get official support if your account has been locked. And maybe even, god forbid, refund you if your complaint had merit.
- cmelbye 5y agoIt would be very difficult to model a financial benefit of offering dedicated support for free products. If you pay for Google One (extra storage), you get access to phone support. I wonder if they would've been able to help in this situation of a locked account.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jvalencia 5y agoIt seems like you could offer phone support and provide it for a little above cost per month. At their scale it would almost immediately be efficient.
- dtjb 5y agoThat creates some weird incentive structures.
- meshaneian 5y agoSadly even some randsomware provides a phone number with useful tech support to help grandparents learn to purchase and transfer bitcoin. :/
- strogonoff 5y agoYou cannot feasibly provide any level of acceptable human support and remain “free” with a huge user base. Meanwhile, being “free” is crucial if your actual paying customer is the advertisers. If you stop being free, you (gasp) normalize paid service. Suddenly you are conflicted and fighting two fronts, you compete with other paid services, your users can actually demand things and vote with their money, etc.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoRemember, over $1 BILLION dollars a quarter of free cash flow into their cash hoard EVERY QUARTER. An absolutely stellar customer support network with real people was being operated by Network Appliance when I was there for less than $60 million A YEAR. Google is absolutely capable of providing a level of service that is unmatched, but they choose not to.
- hathawsh 5y agoIt's possible that Google could provide support, but they are also trying to create a reputation of providing infrastructure so reliable that the technology is simply finished and doesn't need support. They don't want to give the impression that they're giving up that battle.
- Aeolun 5y agoI read a post like this every week. How can they possibly claim they’re winning the battle.
- COGlory 5y agoWho are their competitors for search, email, video, and cell phone? I'll get comfortable.
- ethanwillis 5y agoMicrosoft, Microsoft, TikTok, Apple
- stevehawk 5y agoCounter productive? To what? Their market cap continues to climb. No one gives a shit about their customer support, or lack there of.
- gumby 5y agoOh they love their customers and are quite solicitous as to their needs. People using search, gmail, drive etc aren’t the customers.
- AussieWog93 5y agoIt's a pain in the arse to get AdSense support too!
- gumby 5y agoHey fellow Aussie wog, it’s different if you are Target or Amazon or Buzzfeed. The Internet battler..will ever struggle on. (Fortunately I haven’t been called a wog to my face in decades)
- AlbertCory 5y ago(Former Googler here. There's no individual executive.) People who comment on Google's lack of human support ignore the fact that it's a virus that's engulfed the whole online world. Almost every large company has automated chatbots, voice response systems, FAQs, and every imaginable way to avoid paying human beings who know things. And let's not even talk about whether they're empowered to actually do things for you. Google could certainly lead and maybe the rest of the world would have to follow. Maybe.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- novok 5y agoIt came from the founders and became culture. That + easy-metrics-only culture makes it a hill no other exec wants to die on.