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"I think it puts the impetus on companies to either really flush out their support processes, or to find a vendor that will do it for them." I have to say, I t

by mhp 18y ago

"I think it puts the impetus on companies to either really flush out their support processes, or to find a vendor that will do it for them." I have to say, I think you're missing the complaint. It's not against them providing support FOR COMPANIES THAT DON'T ALREADY DO IT. It's another for them to make MY company have to go to their site and look for customers who are expecting answers. Imagine if there were five companies just like GS competing... I would now be competing with them for PageRank on google searches and having to visit EVERY one of their sites to make sure I don't have any confused customers thinking they're going to get answers from us on those sites. It's unmanageable. 37Signals HAS a support process in place and GS is putting the burden on them to go to their site and fill out their free doohicky that points people there. That's just ridiculous. It's automatically opting you in to a system that you didn't ask to be part of.

Brushfire 18y ago
I see your point -- but you dont see it as an issue that there is a place where your own customers are posting complaints instead of your process? Clearly that means your internal support processes are too hard to find, to difficult to use, or too onerous overall. These are YOUR CUSTOMERS -- they should already know how to find you. If they dont, and they find GS instead, that says a lot.
- mhp 18y ago
  All it says is that your customers could be bad google searchers. Jason pointed out that depending on what you search for GS is the 3rd hit on google. It's not fair that I should have to compete with other people for my own product on Google. It would be just as slimy if a competitor was using my product name to generate business for them (which is exactly what is happening)
  - Semiapies 18y ago
    And that's if you're making generic "support" searches. What if customers Google something related to a problem they're having and the best match is someone's similar question on a GS page? You have customers wandering around a page that impersonates your support service!

by mhp 18y ago

Brushfire 18y ago

I see your point -- but you dont see it as an issue that there is a place where your own customers are posting complaints instead of your process? Clearly that means your internal support processes are too hard to find, to difficult to use, or too onerous overall. These are YOUR CUSTOMERS -- they should already know how to find you. If they dont, and they find GS instead, that says a lot.

mhp 18y ago
All it says is that your customers could be bad google searchers. Jason pointed out that depending on what you search for GS is the 3rd hit on google. It's not fair that I should have to compete with other people for my own product on Google. It would be just as slimy if a competitor was using my product name to generate business for them (which is exactly what is happening)
- Semiapies 18y ago
  And that's if you're making generic "support" searches. What if customers Google something related to a problem they're having and the best match is someone's similar question on a GS page? You have customers wandering around a page that impersonates your support service!