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He talks about 1 billion people needing 10 minutes every 3 years would need 20,000 support people. And Google could setup the fee for the support in such way t

He talks about 1 billion people needing 10 minutes every 3 years would need 20,000 support people. And Google could setup the fee for the support in such way that it is financially self-hosting.

r00fus 14y ago
That's the big difference between Google and say, Apple or Amazon. At other companies, this pressure would cause the formation of a new profit center. For Google, they see it as a quagmire of responsibilities.
assane101 14y ago
If they wanted to pay 6k $ to each of these 20k support guy, they could ask for 6k*20k/(1 billion/3) = 36 cents per 10 minutes support !
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Google can afford to provide support and not charge for it, Google makes plenty of profit. The guy in the video acts as if hiring 40,000 people is ludicrous and unheard of. In reality, it's not even a large workforce compared to companies like Wal*Mart (2.1 million employees), Foxconn (1.2 employees) and Volkswagen (500k, employees). Every decent company has customer support, Google couldn't care less. It doesn't even provide human support to advertisers, its source of income.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  Whether Google should offer support, I don't know. But I'm not convinced by your argument. The companies you name generally have low-skilled workers. Google support would have to be high-skilled and expensive. Also, this is not just greed vs empathy. Everything has an opportunity cost. Google can spend $X staffing support lines for Gmail, or it can spend that money on developing features and bugfixes. This is a strategic business decision; either answer may be better for Google and its users. Of course, they can spend the support savings on Olympic-sized swimming pools full of pudding. But you seem to be assuming they're doing that.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    “Google can spend $X staffing support lines for Gmail, or it can spend that money on developing features and bugfixes.” Or it can do both, because its budget is basically unlimited. Besides, you can't create features or bugfixes simply by adding more developers to a project. If that were true, Apple would be hiring developers by the truck load. Instead, they work with small teams, even though the company is raking in cash. “Google support would have to be high-skilled and expensive.” Let's compare Google with IBM, which has 470,000 employees. I would say that many of those employees are highly skilled and expensive. IBM has twice as much revenue as Google, makes more profit than Google, while employing ten times as many people.
    - wtvanhest 14y ago
      A lot of IBM's employees are consultants. They are not cost centers for IBM, they are revenue/profit centers. Each consultant employee that IBM hires adds to their revenue and profit. Adding call center employees to google would not add to revenue or profit unless they had some method of allowing them to capture more rev. Adding purely customer support people would not benefit google.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        The benefit would be being able to sleep at night.
      - fusiongyro 14y ago
        By that reasoning, nobody should have customer support. Yet people do, because burning your customers is not a sustainable business practice. Support is not a profit center, but in the long term profits go down without it. If people's only loyalty to Google is that their service is free, they won't be hard to woo away.
        wtvanhest 14y ago
        I am talking about Google specifically rather than a hypothetical company that may need phone support to keep their customers. If people's only loyalty to Google is that their service is free, they won't be hard to woo away. People's other loyalty to google is that their service works pretty much perfectly. There is no free or even cost based product that I know of that beats gmail, google maps, google docs. Before you list a bunch of startups no one outside of the tech community has heard of, remember that in order for the public to know about these products, those companies have to pay google to advertise. In addition to having to offer an insanely superior service, anyone entering the field must also know how to monetize which is challenging. If a true competitor arises, they can be acquihired and integrated in to google which further limits google's need to spend millions of dollars a year on call centers.
- math0ne 14y ago
  I just wanted to chime in and say that this is not totally true, at my work we have a direct google support contact for our advertising system. I have requested and received in depth support many time. I know you have to be a certain size to receive this though.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  math0ne: congratulations on your 5th anniversary here on HN! Unfortunately, you've been hellbanned for almost as long. That’s too bad, since your comments are insightful. -------------------- math0ne’s comment, a response to my assertion that not even advertisers get support from Google: “I just wanted to chime in and say that this is not totally true, at my work we have a direct google support contact for our advertising system. I have requested and received in depth support many time. I know you have to be a certain size to receive this though.”
fakeer 14y ago
Yes. Google charges you money only because they make it easier for you to host your email and have calendar, chat etc. And on any given day hosting these things on your own is the best option out there but you might have to get your hands dirty or get it from a service provider who doesn't deny the existence of need for human interaction in customer service.

He talks about 1 billion people needing 10 minutes every 3 years would need 20,000 support people. And Google could setup the fee for the support in such way that it is financially self-hosting.

r00fus 14y ago

That's the big difference between Google and say, Apple or Amazon. At other companies, this pressure would cause the formation of a new profit center. For Google, they see it as a quagmire of responsibilities.

assane101 14y ago

If they wanted to pay 6k $ to each of these 20k support guy, they could ask for 6k*20k/(1 billion/3) = 36 cents per 10 minutes support !

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

Google can afford to provide support and not charge for it, Google makes plenty of profit. The guy in the video acts as if hiring 40,000 people is ludicrous and unheard of. In reality, it's not even a large workforce compared to companies like Wal*Mart (2.1 million employees), Foxconn (1.2 employees) and Volkswagen (500k, employees). Every decent company has customer support, Google couldn't care less. It doesn't even provide human support to advertisers, its source of income.

nathan_long 14y ago
Whether Google should offer support, I don't know. But I'm not convinced by your argument. The companies you name generally have low-skilled workers. Google support would have to be high-skilled and expensive. Also, this is not just greed vs empathy. Everything has an opportunity cost. Google can spend $X staffing support lines for Gmail, or it can spend that money on developing features and bugfixes. This is a strategic business decision; either answer may be better for Google and its users. Of course, they can spend the support savings on Olympic-sized swimming pools full of pudding. But you seem to be assuming they're doing that.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  “Google can spend $X staffing support lines for Gmail, or it can spend that money on developing features and bugfixes.” Or it can do both, because its budget is basically unlimited. Besides, you can't create features or bugfixes simply by adding more developers to a project. If that were true, Apple would be hiring developers by the truck load. Instead, they work with small teams, even though the company is raking in cash. “Google support would have to be high-skilled and expensive.” Let's compare Google with IBM, which has 470,000 employees. I would say that many of those employees are highly skilled and expensive. IBM has twice as much revenue as Google, makes more profit than Google, while employing ten times as many people.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    A lot of IBM's employees are consultants. They are not cost centers for IBM, they are revenue/profit centers. Each consultant employee that IBM hires adds to their revenue and profit. Adding call center employees to google would not add to revenue or profit unless they had some method of allowing them to capture more rev. Adding purely customer support people would not benefit google.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      The benefit would be being able to sleep at night.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      By that reasoning, nobody should have customer support. Yet people do, because burning your customers is not a sustainable business practice. Support is not a profit center, but in the long term profits go down without it. If people's only loyalty to Google is that their service is free, they won't be hard to woo away.
      - wtvanhest 14y ago
        I am talking about Google specifically rather than a hypothetical company that may need phone support to keep their customers. If people's only loyalty to Google is that their service is free, they won't be hard to woo away. People's other loyalty to google is that their service works pretty much perfectly. There is no free or even cost based product that I know of that beats gmail, google maps, google docs. Before you list a bunch of startups no one outside of the tech community has heard of, remember that in order for the public to know about these products, those companies have to pay google to advertise. In addition to having to offer an insanely superior service, anyone entering the field must also know how to monetize which is challenging. If a true competitor arises, they can be acquihired and integrated in to google which further limits google's need to spend millions of dollars a year on call centers.
math0ne 14y ago
I just wanted to chime in and say that this is not totally true, at my work we have a direct google support contact for our advertising system. I have requested and received in depth support many time. I know you have to be a certain size to receive this though.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
math0ne: congratulations on your 5th anniversary here on HN! Unfortunately, you've been hellbanned for almost as long. That’s too bad, since your comments are insightful. -------------------- math0ne’s comment, a response to my assertion that not even advertisers get support from Google: “I just wanted to chime in and say that this is not totally true, at my work we have a direct google support contact for our advertising system. I have requested and received in depth support many time. I know you have to be a certain size to receive this though.”

fakeer 14y ago

Yes. Google charges you money only because they make it easier for you to host your email and have calendar, chat etc. And on any given day hosting these things on your own is the best option out there but you might have to get your hands dirty or get it from a service provider who doesn't deny the existence of need for human interaction in customer service.