8 ms·

Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? I am so tired of hearing about these stori

by tomc1985 5y ago

Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? I am so tired of hearing about these stories. We need to start showing up with torches and pitchforks. I swear, this short-sighted profit-first skeleton-crew styule of management ruins everything. Like a reverse Midas touch

spaetzleesser 5y ago
"Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? " It's called regulation and laws. A lot of other industries have to follow a lot of rules. Tech doesn't like it because it would cost them profits.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Host your own platform where you're the the support staff. It's easier than it may seem with all the software available today.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    But doesn't the network effect (e.g. the fact that 95% of the people out there won't have heard of said platform and won't have much interest in using it due to their friends not being there) kind of ruin the efficacy of doing that? I kind of see that now with Signal/Telegram, most of my friends are still on WhatsApp, so using either of those as an alternative to it isn't a viable choice, since i'd have very few people to chat with. In contrast, WhatsApp is an already established solution, so i wouldn't have to ask them to install a new app either (which i tried, about 10% even cared about Meta owning it). In regards to having any sort of a social media account for a company, that would be a non-starter in most cases - since you'd limit your outreach possibilities severely by using niche networks. That said, it can work for other sorts of software, like file sharing software (Nextcloud over Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever), and federated networks could be worthy of further consideration as well.
    - forgotmypw17 5y ago
      I think you're missing something: nearly 100% of people who are online are already on the platform called the Web. The Web allows you to operate a community service which is compatible with nearly 25 years worth of devices and browsers without being required to use anyone else's platform.
      - KronisLV 5y ago
        No, i don't think i am. When i talked about "platforms", i wasn't talking about the types of devices, but rather the types of social networks (or, say, marketplaces, professional networks etc.). Allow me to clarify, because the term "platform" is indeed ambiguous! As an example, compare Facebook with Mastodon. The former has somewhere around 2.9 billion monthly active users: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly... Mastodon has around 4.4 million users: https://joinmastodon.org/d https://joinmastodon.org/d That means that Facebook has 659 times more users than Mastodon. So, assuming that you want to target an audience that's a general representation of society, not just technology geeks and privacy enthusiasts (who'd make up a larger part of Mastodon, presumably), for every 1'000'000 impressions on Facebook, you would get ~1'500 on Mastodon. With a conversion rate of 1%, Facebook would earn you about 10'000 sales, whereas Mastodon would earn you 15. Let's suppose that whatever you're selling costs 25$. Facebook gets you 250'000$, whereas Mastodon gets you 375$, just because you chose a different platform. The former doesn't respect your privacy, whereas the latter does. But that doesn't matter in a meaningful way for a business, if your goal is to reach more people to engage with to advertise or even just represent your product. In a non-commercial sense, consider being able to chat with only one out of every 659 of your friends. In other words, it's unlikely that any of your friends (unless it's a niche group of people with shared interests) or family use Mastodon, whereas many of them most certainly use Facebook. Which of those is better for keeping in touch, then? This is the network effect, something that every new platform out there has to deal with.
        forgotmypw17 5y ago
        On the other hand, I started my own blog and Facebook-like forum for less than $10/month, and all my friends are able to access it and connect with me from any of their multitude of devices. And included in the same fee is the ability to spin up more sites for each friend who wants one too. And they can all inter-operate and copy posts between each other. Mastodon is pretty much just another Facebook, split into pieces. The Web is a real, viable, free platform, today.
- maneesh 5y ago
  Which highly regulated industry do you feel has adequate customer support staff?
  - danielheath 5y ago
    Over here (Australia) I’d say that banking and medicine do. Bank branches have greeters who figure out whether you need a longer appointment or a teller; doctors have receptionists. Even airlines (which have cut support staff) still have air host(esse)s who will help you in flight.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    While not perfect (no one is), the finance industry in the US does.generally does.
judge2020 5y ago
Short of legislation, they really don't care if even 5% leave the platform - Facebook showed this when they still recorded double-digit profit growth despite losing a huge amount of usage in the younger generation (but that was eventually offset by purchasing Instagram). They can tune the Ad levers anytime to extract money from the rest of the remaining population to make up for what was lost, so until there's some mass exodus or cataclysmic change in U.S. acceptance of social media, they won't see any real consequences for spitting on a trivial portion of their users.
raymondtusk 5y ago
It's not about amount of staff. It's that bureaucracies, poorly run, provide incentives for people to stifle others for personal power. And Account Safety/Support/Security/Compliance Customer Service is (almost everywhere) very much a bureaucracy. Who has skewered this all too true trope? Partial list: - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (literally run by obstructionist bureaucracy) - Zootopia (literal sloth in the DMV) - Loki (TVA is literally a bloated bureaucracy) I might even go further...bigger, in these cases, is worse. If it's not the lack of staff...then maybe it's too many.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I'm not saying they need tons and tons and tons of people. > And Account Safety/Support/Security/Compliance Customer Service is (almost everywhere) very much a bureaucracy. Fine. At least in that world you can talk to someone. Bureaucrats, I can work with. But tech just doesn't give a shit. We have this wreckless-to-ignorant willfull blindness to the flaws of what we build and having to exercise one's connections is the exact opposite of the so-called 'democratization' that everyone talks about. Our world practically vomits liberal values of equality and egalitarianism and yet we willfully submit our lives to machines that can shut us out for completely automated and imperfect reasons, with no real recourse save for the savvy and connected. Like people need to be burning at the stake over this stuff. Enough is enough.
35mm 5y ago
Agreed. And also insist that they are required to label responses from ‘AI’ systems as such. I’ve had many experiences talking to Google support (for ads where we are paying them thousands of dollars) where the responses which are allegedly from humans really seem like a conversation with an algorithm. They have also introduced fake empathy messages now which come across as patronising and insulting. For example I was trying to upgrade my YouTube premium account and 3 different support reps all said a variation of “I have a YouTube Premium Family account and when I can’t get access to it I feel concerned, so I know what you’re feeling.”
inglor_cz 5y ago
I suspect that their current business model ("free service, but we sell your eyeballs") would stop being profitable if they added enough customer support into the mix. Facebook has how many? 2 billion users? More than even the largest nation on Earth. Even if there was just one customer support worker for 1000 of them, that would mean 2 million employees. They would have to start charging for access. Not that I dislike that; it would make things a little more balanced, with users becoming customers.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

"Is there anything we can do to force the FAANGS of this world to maintain a proper amount of customer support staff? " It's called regulation and laws. A lot of other industries have to follow a lot of rules. Tech doesn't like it because it would cost them profits.

forgotmypw17 5y ago
Host your own platform where you're the the support staff. It's easier than it may seem with all the software available today.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  But doesn't the network effect (e.g. the fact that 95% of the people out there won't have heard of said platform and won't have much interest in using it due to their friends not being there) kind of ruin the efficacy of doing that? I kind of see that now with Signal/Telegram, most of my friends are still on WhatsApp, so using either of those as an alternative to it isn't a viable choice, since i'd have very few people to chat with. In contrast, WhatsApp is an already established solution, so i wouldn't have to ask them to install a new app either (which i tried, about 10% even cared about Meta owning it). In regards to having any sort of a social media account for a company, that would be a non-starter in most cases - since you'd limit your outreach possibilities severely by using niche networks. That said, it can work for other sorts of software, like file sharing software (Nextcloud over Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever), and federated networks could be worthy of further consideration as well.
  - forgotmypw17 5y ago
    I think you're missing something: nearly 100% of people who are online are already on the platform called the Web. The Web allows you to operate a community service which is compatible with nearly 25 years worth of devices and browsers without being required to use anyone else's platform.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      No, i don't think i am. When i talked about "platforms", i wasn't talking about the types of devices, but rather the types of social networks (or, say, marketplaces, professional networks etc.). Allow me to clarify, because the term "platform" is indeed ambiguous! As an example, compare Facebook with Mastodon. The former has somewhere around 2.9 billion monthly active users: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly... Mastodon has around 4.4 million users: https://joinmastodon.org/d https://joinmastodon.org/d That means that Facebook has 659 times more users than Mastodon. So, assuming that you want to target an audience that's a general representation of society, not just technology geeks and privacy enthusiasts (who'd make up a larger part of Mastodon, presumably), for every 1'000'000 impressions on Facebook, you would get ~1'500 on Mastodon. With a conversion rate of 1%, Facebook would earn you about 10'000 sales, whereas Mastodon would earn you 15. Let's suppose that whatever you're selling costs 25$. Facebook gets you 250'000$, whereas Mastodon gets you 375$, just because you chose a different platform. The former doesn't respect your privacy, whereas the latter does. But that doesn't matter in a meaningful way for a business, if your goal is to reach more people to engage with to advertise or even just represent your product. In a non-commercial sense, consider being able to chat with only one out of every 659 of your friends. In other words, it's unlikely that any of your friends (unless it's a niche group of people with shared interests) or family use Mastodon, whereas many of them most certainly use Facebook. Which of those is better for keeping in touch, then? This is the network effect, something that every new platform out there has to deal with.
      - forgotmypw17 5y ago
        On the other hand, I started my own blog and Facebook-like forum for less than $10/month, and all my friends are able to access it and connect with me from any of their multitude of devices. And included in the same fee is the ability to spin up more sites for each friend who wants one too. And they can all inter-operate and copy posts between each other. Mastodon is pretty much just another Facebook, split into pieces. The Web is a real, viable, free platform, today.
maneesh 5y ago
Which highly regulated industry do you feel has adequate customer support staff?
- danielheath 5y ago
  Over here (Australia) I’d say that banking and medicine do. Bank branches have greeters who figure out whether you need a longer appointment or a teller; doctors have receptionists. Even airlines (which have cut support staff) still have air host(esse)s who will help you in flight.
- ghaff 5y ago
  While not perfect (no one is), the finance industry in the US does.generally does.

judge2020 5y ago

Short of legislation, they really don't care if even 5% leave the platform - Facebook showed this when they still recorded double-digit profit growth despite losing a huge amount of usage in the younger generation (but that was eventually offset by purchasing Instagram). They can tune the Ad levers anytime to extract money from the rest of the remaining population to make up for what was lost, so until there's some mass exodus or cataclysmic change in U.S. acceptance of social media, they won't see any real consequences for spitting on a trivial portion of their users.

raymondtusk 5y ago

It's not about amount of staff. It's that bureaucracies, poorly run, provide incentives for people to stifle others for personal power. And Account Safety/Support/Security/Compliance Customer Service is (almost everywhere) very much a bureaucracy. Who has skewered this all too true trope? Partial list: - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (literally run by obstructionist bureaucracy) - Zootopia (literal sloth in the DMV) - Loki (TVA is literally a bloated bureaucracy) I might even go further...bigger, in these cases, is worse. If it's not the lack of staff...then maybe it's too many.

tomc1985 5y ago
I'm not saying they need tons and tons and tons of people. > And Account Safety/Support/Security/Compliance Customer Service is (almost everywhere) very much a bureaucracy. Fine. At least in that world you can talk to someone. Bureaucrats, I can work with. But tech just doesn't give a shit. We have this wreckless-to-ignorant willfull blindness to the flaws of what we build and having to exercise one's connections is the exact opposite of the so-called 'democratization' that everyone talks about. Our world practically vomits liberal values of equality and egalitarianism and yet we willfully submit our lives to machines that can shut us out for completely automated and imperfect reasons, with no real recourse save for the savvy and connected. Like people need to be burning at the stake over this stuff. Enough is enough.

35mm 5y ago

Agreed. And also insist that they are required to label responses from ‘AI’ systems as such. I’ve had many experiences talking to Google support (for ads where we are paying them thousands of dollars) where the responses which are allegedly from humans really seem like a conversation with an algorithm. They have also introduced fake empathy messages now which come across as patronising and insulting. For example I was trying to upgrade my YouTube premium account and 3 different support reps all said a variation of “I have a YouTube Premium Family account and when I can’t get access to it I feel concerned, so I know what you’re feeling.”

inglor_cz 5y ago

I suspect that their current business model ("free service, but we sell your eyeballs") would stop being profitable if they added enough customer support into the mix. Facebook has how many? 2 billion users? More than even the largest nation on Earth. Even if there was just one customer support worker for 1000 of them, that would mean 2 million employees. They would have to start charging for access. Not that I dislike that; it would make things a little more balanced, with users becoming customers.