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Google customer support is notoriously bad. Support for their flagship products, gmail, google docs, etc is non-existent. For example, gmail filtering + email f

Google customer support is notoriously bad. Support for their flagship products, gmail, google docs, etc is non-existent. For example, gmail filtering + email forwarding have been broken for over a year, with no fix in sight. So I'm not surprised to see that support isn't good in other area's either. It's really a shame because Google is a great company, with great products and a great vision, and it hurts to see sloppy execution.

d2vid 14y ago
I agree, I'm rooting for Google and would just like them to fix their customer support. I get that they can't profitably provide any kind of support for, say, Google Groups. As we like to say around here, if you don't pay them, then you're the product and you can't expect good service. But once they start moving into markets where you pay them money, the bar is higher. In this case, I'm the customer and their support is by far the worst customer experience of my life. Worse than the time a US Airways stewardess took my carry-on bag off the plane before take-off without telling me.
cooldeal 14y ago
>Support for their flagship products, gmail, google docs, etc is non-existent How are they flagship products? Their flagship profit maker is ads and I hear their support for advertizers is top notch. I doubt Gmail makes enough off its ads to justify its costs, I think its value is more in getting people to sign in to Google so that if you search for something at work, ads related to it are shown at home etc.
quasque 14y ago
"gmail filtering + email forwarding have been broken for over a year" Could you elaborate on this please?
- knite 14y ago
  Seconded! This is the first I've heard of problems with Gmail's filtering/forwarding.
  - nivla 14y ago
    I think it has to do with that post where someone missed out on important legal mails because gmail chose to only forward those mails that passed their spam test.
    - Natsu 14y ago
      Can't you use the "never mark this as spam" option? I haven't tested that, however, so it's possible that it wouldn't work.
      - nivla 14y ago
        Yes you can and there are other tricks too. However, since its not the default behavior and given that most people don't realize it when setting up forwarding, it can be considered a bug.
- Afforess 14y ago
  This issue: http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/ugBCu8aty0U http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/ugBCu8... Also: http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/jCukq7_LIKo http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/jCukq7... It's pretty easy to reproduce. Create a filter for your emails, any filter at all. In the rules section, have the filter forward to a forwarding address. Now receive an email that matches the filter, and watch the forwarding not work.
vibrunazo 14y ago
You should try: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail If you click on each sub-forum, you can see from the official response icon column, on the right. That most of the threads do get an answer. That's far from non-existent. I think their big failure here, has been to poorly communicate how people can get help, most don't know about the forums.
notatoad 14y ago
Any company the size of google can't provide support for their free products. It's not that it's too expensive, or that it's too hard, providing support for a product like gmail is simply impossible. If they opened up a support line for gmail they would simply become overwhelmed with requests like "help, i can't find the send button" or "somebody's spamming me, cna you tell them to stop". Real actual support queries would never get through the noise.

d2vid 14y ago

I agree, I'm rooting for Google and would just like them to fix their customer support. I get that they can't profitably provide any kind of support for, say, Google Groups. As we like to say around here, if you don't pay them, then you're the product and you can't expect good service. But once they start moving into markets where you pay them money, the bar is higher. In this case, I'm the customer and their support is by far the worst customer experience of my life. Worse than the time a US Airways stewardess took my carry-on bag off the plane before take-off without telling me.

cooldeal 14y ago

>Support for their flagship products, gmail, google docs, etc is non-existent How are they flagship products? Their flagship profit maker is ads and I hear their support for advertizers is top notch. I doubt Gmail makes enough off its ads to justify its costs, I think its value is more in getting people to sign in to Google so that if you search for something at work, ads related to it are shown at home etc.

quasque 14y ago

"gmail filtering + email forwarding have been broken for over a year" Could you elaborate on this please?

knite 14y ago
Seconded! This is the first I've heard of problems with Gmail's filtering/forwarding.
- nivla 14y ago
  I think it has to do with that post where someone missed out on important legal mails because gmail chose to only forward those mails that passed their spam test.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    Can't you use the "never mark this as spam" option? I haven't tested that, however, so it's possible that it wouldn't work.
    - nivla 14y ago
      Yes you can and there are other tricks too. However, since its not the default behavior and given that most people don't realize it when setting up forwarding, it can be considered a bug.
Afforess 14y ago
This issue: http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/ugBCu8aty0U http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/ugBCu8... Also: http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/jCukq7_LIKo http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/gmail/jCukq7... It's pretty easy to reproduce. Create a filter for your emails, any filter at all. In the rules section, have the filter forward to a forwarding address. Now receive an email that matches the filter, and watch the forwarding not work.

vibrunazo 14y ago

You should try: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail If you click on each sub-forum, you can see from the official response icon column, on the right. That most of the threads do get an answer. That's far from non-existent. I think their big failure here, has been to poorly communicate how people can get help, most don't know about the forums.

notatoad 14y ago

Any company the size of google can't provide support for their free products. It's not that it's too expensive, or that it's too hard, providing support for a product like gmail is simply impossible. If they opened up a support line for gmail they would simply become overwhelmed with requests like "help, i can't find the send button" or "somebody's spamming me, cna you tell them to stop". Real actual support queries would never get through the noise.