Please email me (email in profile) and I will try to get you support internally.
Also, these comments appear mechanically and interchangeably every time the topic comes up, which means they're not the greatest for intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
But the account in question is closed for non-payment.
Compare this with Amazon that publicly claims placing customer service above all else. At least if you work in CS there, you have the feeling that you are always a fundamental part of the company.
I disagree specifically with the "no way to talk to" part.
The woman never responded, but, our issues were fixed the next day.
I needed support from Google Cloud, and the only way I was able to get meaningful support was to bother the Sales guy who started to bother me once he saw the news that we had our Round C go through.
When google punts their partner program at you, they openly say that they suck at support, use partners and get support better/faster. At least they're honest about it...
And the support I received was fast ( just a timer or something of 40 seconds) till I got "in".
I personally have no complaints, but I'm not using it as a free service also.
It seems that the only way for a small business to get in contact with someone at Google is to raise hell on social media (or HN) and to wait for someone to take mercy on you.
I mean, even a paid option.
As a business, I would gladly pay $99 for a phone call if I have a high-pri issue.
I remember using that when Microsoft had something like that years ago.
If they did that, high-priority support can be a profit center (or at least break even) if they're really that worried about costs.
I'm intrigued by the implication that HN is not social media.
I credit the excellent, thoughtful moderators at HN for that.
Contrast Netflix, where you consume fixed content, or Amazon, where you buy things.
This is more like your local news site. Articles are presented with comments below. Comments can be from real people but anyone can use a fake name. And who gave the comment rarely matters.
In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be — but if you are a very large company (or have millions or tens of millions of users), it’s often not possible to have live support staff who have the knowledge to handle every issue. It’s not just about paying for it either — if you have tens of millions of customers, support doesn’t scale that way, irrespective of cost (if you pay more you can generally get people more committed to gaining the knowledge to offer good support, but you still have a relative fixed number of “good enough” candidates). And that doesn’t even account for the fact that a vast majority of questions/calls are for issues that can either be automated or handled by less-skilled/lower-paid support.
In the face of those realities, using external platforms to act as a signal boost/triage for the most critical issues isn’t necessarily the worst thing.
Nine or ten years ago, I visited Delta’s headquarters to see how they were using Twitter to inform and re-define their customer service experiences. Airlines were some of the first industries to scour social media for issues to handle in real time and to go from being reactive (you have an issue and use Twitter to complain), to proactive (you’re invited to reach out over Twitter DMs or Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp) and I think they’ve actually done a good job. (I’d be curious to see what it has been like for airlines the last month as there have been unprecedented cancellations and support volumes are flooded across contact points). I have to give Delta immense credit, even a decade ago, they were doing phenomenal work in the space. I’m a Diamond Medallion, which means I theoretically get highest-priority phone support — and the agents on the phone are fantastic for helping me with complicated itineraries or rebookings), but for many things (like applying a regional upgrade certificate), I just DM the Twitter account because it is faster and it is a way the agent can work with multiple customers at once.
It would be great if all small businesses had a direct line to their vendors, but in the absence of that (which isn’t realistic), at least there is a way to boost the signal and get attention.
Say you are the victim of a crime. You can't really do anything about it except appeal to the authorities. They will generally take pity on you and try to enforce the law, but often enough they don't and they have discretion not to. You have no other recourse for justice if they take the route of not enforcing the law other than appealing to the public or to a higher authority. Many victims of crimes have had the existing system fail them in this fashion.