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I'm paying for our company's google email accounts. I did that solely so I could get access to their support. The support experience was outstanding. There was

by swombat 14y ago

I'm paying for our company's google email accounts. I did that solely so I could get access to their support. The support experience was outstanding. There was a smart, informed person handling the case. It was a tricky case, there were a number of emails exchanged and several lengthy phone calls, and it turned out not to be Google's fault at all (it was Rackspace's fault), and yet they were courteous, helpful, intelligent, informed, hands on. One of the best support experiences I've had - but it only happened after we started paying for our email accounts.

jay_kyburz 14y ago
Hey I would like to jump in and say I had a great experience with the Irish support guys on two separate occasions. $50 a year for google apps for biz.
- stegro32 14y ago
  Another 'me too' from here, but I'd also add the I've found the support uniformly excellent across Apps and the 'Cloud Platform' (App Engine, Cloud Storage etc.). Interestingly, it's been the sales interactions I've found most frustrating - once you're large enough to have outgrown the online purchasing mechanisms for Google Apps, for example, provisioning new accounts is a world of pain.
  - kelvin0 14y ago
    I've had a TERRIBLE experience with PAYING app engine commercial account. Important document disappeared, took a week and constant 'nagging' from myself in order to finally get this under control. As a note I was the one who pushed for our company to start using this service from 'do no evil' corporation ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292645
    - DannyBee 14y ago
      The statement was "don't be evil", not "do no evil". It's about trying to do the right thing, not never messing up and causing harm.
zalew 14y ago
too bad there is nothing between free gmail and google apps. I'd like a personal paid account with support.
- zoul 14y ago
  Is $5 per month too expensive?
  - zalew 14y ago
    google apps isn't an upgrade for gmail. it's setting up an account in a separate infrastructure with different features and limitations, where features are developped and rolled out on a different schedule. even most google faqs advise that you should set up a separate account for your google apps business needs, because migration is a pain, and you win some lose some.
    - squidi 14y ago
      Excellent point, zalew. I've looked into this too and found the issues with migrating to be too numerous to proceed. Some products like Plus seemed to have no migration path when I last checked.
- _mulder_ 14y ago
  Support for what? Interesting how the above responses all said they paid for Google Apps and then used the support, nothing wrong with that, but it seems as soon as you pay for something that offers support, people then feel like they need to use it just because they can, almost as a justification for paying for it. I can't see why you would need support for a single personal GMail account? What problem could you possibly have that Google haven't spotted or the answer isn't available on the internet somewhere?!
  - philtar 14y ago
    In response to your second paragraph: Are you expecting people who paid for support and didn't use it to chime in? What are they supposed to say?
onemorepassword 14y ago
How on earth did you manage that? We pay for our business Google Apps, but I never even got as much as a reply.
- bluedino 14y ago
  Sounds like our experience. One email address wasn't working, out of 25, and all they had for support was a troubleshooting page. After wasting an hour contacting Google, we got an automated reply that some accounts were being affected, and then about 2 days later the problem magically went away.
  - swombat 14y ago
    I can't remember exactly now (it was some months ago), but there was a support link on the apps control panel, some kind of funky procedure with providing a number that justified that we were a google apps paying customer, and then it took them about a day to respond, but once they were on the case, they were good and very responsive. It took a few days to hunt down the issue.
jaredmcateer 14y ago
I had a problem with my Nexus 4, the FS got corrupted and wouldn't recognize any sim card, no amount of reset to factory defaults or flashing the rom would help. I had one small hitch getting ahold of their support, you had to call. My cell is my only phone so calling them was problematic. I had to use a friend's phone to do it, but once I got past the gatekeeper, I just interacted with the techs via email. After some very simple troubleshooting they emailed me shipping labels whilst shipping me a new phone. I've never had a company ship me a replacement before they received the dud, that was quite refreshing.
- gcb0 14y ago
  And which number exactly did you call?
  - jaredmcateer 14y ago
    1-855-836-3987, which is the number for returning a nexus device (for Canada at least), and it looks like they now allow you to fill out a form now instead if you wish.
JPKab 14y ago
gasp you mean you have to pay for something to expect support??? I'm glad you commented, because you bring a bit of reality to some of the other commenters who chime "Google doesn't offer support beause they don't have to." Umm, no, they don't offer support because only an idiot would offer support to customers who aren't paying for anything. I get so tired of people who get "free" (yes, i know Google monetizes their use with ads) stuff wanting support. If you want support, you have to pay for it. The skilled person wearing the headset in the call center doesn't work for free.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  There are two real problems with Google support. 1) For many products (like Groups), there is no paid tier, and thus no way to get support at all. 2) For paid products like Google Apps, it can still be very difficult to get support, even though you're paying (see other responses in this thread).
  - GauntletWizard 14y ago
    Groups is an "Apps" service - It's supported as part of the apps package. Even for most non-apps services, the support people will attempt to figure out your problem, though it's best-effort. Disclosure: I work on Google Enterprise.
    - snowwrestler 14y ago
      Thanks, I did not know that about Groups. > Even for most non-apps services, the support people will attempt to figure out your problem, though it's best-effort. Ah, but how can people get their problems in front of the support people for non-apps services? There is no obvious way to do so.
Serow225 14y ago
This is an aside, but does anyone know if there's a way to get Google Apps but keep using your gmail address? I'd be happy to pay the Google Apps subscription rate, but I don't want to go through the pain of switching my email address to a new custom domain. I'm guessing that you can set up a forwarding rule from the gmail account to the new one, and then use the Send As feature in the new account, but that seems pretty kludgy. Is there a better way?
- LogicX 14y ago
  You've hit the nail on the head -- thats precisely the way to do it.
  - Serow225 14y ago
    Thanks, but that seems kind of backwards - that way you're using the free/unsupported gmail account as the 'front end' to relay incoming mail to your paid/supported Apps account. If you then call Google up to troubleshoot something, would they blame issues on the free gMail relay? What if the free account was occasionally flaky, and you missed getting some emails forwarded... Also from what I've read, the gMail 'Send As' feature has been not exactly transparent previously, maybe that's been fixed now? I don't know if the fact that both email accounts are Google would help make this not a problem.
- Navarr 14y ago
  As a Google Apps user, you do NOT want to do this. You are well advised to host your email elsewhere and have it relayed to your normal Google account (and add the email address as a Google identity and a send-as in gmail). I'll tell you why: + Google Apps users are the LAST group of people to get access to new google products (Google+ for example) + You can NOT add new emails to your identity information + There is no appropriate way to transfer your identity
  - Serow225 14y ago
    Thanks for the first hand feedback. What do you mean about 'not add new emails to your identity information'? I'm OK with missing out on the latest & greatest features/products. I also don't really care about Google+, if that's what your third point was talking about?
alternize 14y ago
I have to agree with this. while I'm not always happy with the outcome of the support exchange (i.e. "it is how it is, we cannot raise the attachment size limit even for paying customers") the support staff was always prompt, technical versatile and friendly. once they even called me back after a day or two to verify I'm happy. and this was just for a 4-user google apps account.

by swombat 14y ago

jay_kyburz 14y ago

Hey I would like to jump in and say I had a great experience with the Irish support guys on two separate occasions. $50 a year for google apps for biz.

stegro32 14y ago
Another 'me too' from here, but I'd also add the I've found the support uniformly excellent across Apps and the 'Cloud Platform' (App Engine, Cloud Storage etc.). Interestingly, it's been the sales interactions I've found most frustrating - once you're large enough to have outgrown the online purchasing mechanisms for Google Apps, for example, provisioning new accounts is a world of pain.
- kelvin0 14y ago
  I've had a TERRIBLE experience with PAYING app engine commercial account. Important document disappeared, took a week and constant 'nagging' from myself in order to finally get this under control. As a note I was the one who pushed for our company to start using this service from 'do no evil' corporation ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292645
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    The statement was "don't be evil", not "do no evil". It's about trying to do the right thing, not never messing up and causing harm.

zalew 14y ago

too bad there is nothing between free gmail and google apps. I'd like a personal paid account with support.

zoul 14y ago
Is $5 per month too expensive?
- zalew 14y ago
  google apps isn't an upgrade for gmail. it's setting up an account in a separate infrastructure with different features and limitations, where features are developped and rolled out on a different schedule. even most google faqs advise that you should set up a separate account for your google apps business needs, because migration is a pain, and you win some lose some.
  - squidi 14y ago
    Excellent point, zalew. I've looked into this too and found the issues with migrating to be too numerous to proceed. Some products like Plus seemed to have no migration path when I last checked.
_mulder_ 14y ago
Support for what? Interesting how the above responses all said they paid for Google Apps and then used the support, nothing wrong with that, but it seems as soon as you pay for something that offers support, people then feel like they need to use it just because they can, almost as a justification for paying for it. I can't see why you would need support for a single personal GMail account? What problem could you possibly have that Google haven't spotted or the answer isn't available on the internet somewhere?!
- philtar 14y ago
  In response to your second paragraph: Are you expecting people who paid for support and didn't use it to chime in? What are they supposed to say?

onemorepassword 14y ago

How on earth did you manage that? We pay for our business Google Apps, but I never even got as much as a reply.

bluedino 14y ago
Sounds like our experience. One email address wasn't working, out of 25, and all they had for support was a troubleshooting page. After wasting an hour contacting Google, we got an automated reply that some accounts were being affected, and then about 2 days later the problem magically went away.
- swombat 14y ago
  I can't remember exactly now (it was some months ago), but there was a support link on the apps control panel, some kind of funky procedure with providing a number that justified that we were a google apps paying customer, and then it took them about a day to respond, but once they were on the case, they were good and very responsive. It took a few days to hunt down the issue.

jaredmcateer 14y ago

I had a problem with my Nexus 4, the FS got corrupted and wouldn't recognize any sim card, no amount of reset to factory defaults or flashing the rom would help. I had one small hitch getting ahold of their support, you had to call. My cell is my only phone so calling them was problematic. I had to use a friend's phone to do it, but once I got past the gatekeeper, I just interacted with the techs via email. After some very simple troubleshooting they emailed me shipping labels whilst shipping me a new phone. I've never had a company ship me a replacement before they received the dud, that was quite refreshing.

gcb0 14y ago
And which number exactly did you call?
- jaredmcateer 14y ago
  1-855-836-3987, which is the number for returning a nexus device (for Canada at least), and it looks like they now allow you to fill out a form now instead if you wish.

JPKab 14y ago

gasp you mean you have to pay for something to expect support??? I'm glad you commented, because you bring a bit of reality to some of the other commenters who chime "Google doesn't offer support beause they don't have to." Umm, no, they don't offer support because only an idiot would offer support to customers who aren't paying for anything. I get so tired of people who get "free" (yes, i know Google monetizes their use with ads) stuff wanting support. If you want support, you have to pay for it. The skilled person wearing the headset in the call center doesn't work for free.

snowwrestler 14y ago
There are two real problems with Google support. 1) For many products (like Groups), there is no paid tier, and thus no way to get support at all. 2) For paid products like Google Apps, it can still be very difficult to get support, even though you're paying (see other responses in this thread).
- GauntletWizard 14y ago
  Groups is an "Apps" service - It's supported as part of the apps package. Even for most non-apps services, the support people will attempt to figure out your problem, though it's best-effort. Disclosure: I work on Google Enterprise.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    Thanks, I did not know that about Groups. > Even for most non-apps services, the support people will attempt to figure out your problem, though it's best-effort. Ah, but how can people get their problems in front of the support people for non-apps services? There is no obvious way to do so.

Serow225 14y ago

This is an aside, but does anyone know if there's a way to get Google Apps but keep using your gmail address? I'd be happy to pay the Google Apps subscription rate, but I don't want to go through the pain of switching my email address to a new custom domain. I'm guessing that you can set up a forwarding rule from the gmail account to the new one, and then use the Send As feature in the new account, but that seems pretty kludgy. Is there a better way?

LogicX 14y ago
You've hit the nail on the head -- thats precisely the way to do it.
- Serow225 14y ago
  Thanks, but that seems kind of backwards - that way you're using the free/unsupported gmail account as the 'front end' to relay incoming mail to your paid/supported Apps account. If you then call Google up to troubleshoot something, would they blame issues on the free gMail relay? What if the free account was occasionally flaky, and you missed getting some emails forwarded... Also from what I've read, the gMail 'Send As' feature has been not exactly transparent previously, maybe that's been fixed now? I don't know if the fact that both email accounts are Google would help make this not a problem.
Navarr 14y ago
As a Google Apps user, you do NOT want to do this. You are well advised to host your email elsewhere and have it relayed to your normal Google account (and add the email address as a Google identity and a send-as in gmail). I'll tell you why: + Google Apps users are the LAST group of people to get access to new google products (Google+ for example) + You can NOT add new emails to your identity information + There is no appropriate way to transfer your identity
- Serow225 14y ago
  Thanks for the first hand feedback. What do you mean about 'not add new emails to your identity information'? I'm OK with missing out on the latest & greatest features/products. I also don't really care about Google+, if that's what your third point was talking about?

alternize 14y ago

I have to agree with this. while I'm not always happy with the outcome of the support exchange (i.e. "it is how it is, we cannot raise the attachment size limit even for paying customers") the support staff was always prompt, technical versatile and friendly. once they even called me back after a day or two to verify I'm happy. and this was just for a 4-user google apps account.