3 ms·

Nowhere has it been shown that adding support people would make these companies unprofitable.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I have worked with budgets at large companies with paid products and real human customer support. The cost of customer support is much, much bigger than people realize. For a low-margin business, a single customer support interaction might wipe out an entire year of profit. Even the most optimized ad-supported companies like Facebook have revenues (not profits, that's before expenses) in the range of a couple dollars per user per month. A typical ad-supported business might have profits as low as a couple pennies per user per month. A single customer support interaction that takes 5 total minutes could take years to recoup. I know people want to speak to someone, but the reality is that they like their $0 services even more.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  If you are paying $0, you aren't a customer. You aren't a customer of Facebook typically, you are a user. Facebook does have customers, which are advertisers, and they get live support (unsurprisingly). [1] Besides, we really aren't talking about low-margin businesses. If you are a low-margin business, chances are, your overall impact on society is not that high, and the importance of regulating you is not high either. If we introduced regulations like this it would be restricted to businesses of a certain headcount and revenue, probably. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=353836851981351 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=3...
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  My company sells gift cards. Until we were purchased by a very large company, we had customer support agents from day one. They worked in the same office as me, and I was one the team that helped build tools for them to do their job. The cool thing about having real, talented human beings doing that job instead of some undertrained call center? We treated them as part of our Fraud department. Someone calls in and tries to illicitly get access to cards they don't own, and the support agent had the training and knowledge to often be able to spot that and prevent it. We didn't charge customers a cent for this privilege.

I have worked with budgets at large companies with paid products and real human customer support. The cost of customer support is much, much bigger than people realize. For a low-margin business, a single customer support interaction might wipe out an entire year of profit. Even the most optimized ad-supported companies like Facebook have revenues (not profits, that's before expenses) in the range of a couple dollars per user per month. A typical ad-supported business might have profits as low as a couple pennies per user per month. A single customer support interaction that takes 5 total minutes could take years to recoup. I know people want to speak to someone, but the reality is that they like their $0 services even more.

ironmagma 5y ago
If you are paying $0, you aren't a customer. You aren't a customer of Facebook typically, you are a user. Facebook does have customers, which are advertisers, and they get live support (unsurprisingly). [1] Besides, we really aren't talking about low-margin businesses. If you are a low-margin business, chances are, your overall impact on society is not that high, and the importance of regulating you is not high either. If we introduced regulations like this it would be restricted to businesses of a certain headcount and revenue, probably. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=353836851981351 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=3...
mrguyorama 5y ago
My company sells gift cards. Until we were purchased by a very large company, we had customer support agents from day one. They worked in the same office as me, and I was one the team that helped build tools for them to do their job. The cool thing about having real, talented human beings doing that job instead of some undertrained call center? We treated them as part of our Fraud department. Someone calls in and tries to illicitly get access to cards they don't own, and the support agent had the training and knowledge to often be able to spot that and prevent it. We didn't charge customers a cent for this privilege.