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Comment by TheCapn | Hacker News Reader

My wife had issues with her Pixel 6 Pro almost immediately after delivery. It was stuttering randomly doing anything. My rough diagnosis after watching it/replicating it was hardware issue there was no doubt in my mind.

Google's help though? Basically wanted us to engage them in some sort of circus over a device 3 days old. We just straight up returned it and ordered a new one which has worked great. Google wouldn't even issue a straight replacement through their tech support and we did a Return + Purchase to get around their hoops they were trying to get us to jump through.

As all things with Google: they need to actually fix their user support. Even as paying customers of theirs they passed our concerns off and treated us like idiots. I've been using Google's phones since their Nexus line but that experience has made it so I'll be looking elsewhere when replacing my 6 in a year or two.

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"they need to actually fix their user support"

Everyone knows about their customer service issues. Google must know it's a problem, but for some unknown reason (probably shareholder value) refuses to fix it.

They are never going to address their shitty customer service.

Customer support is not worth it. There is a reason companies in general don’t invest in it, as it is really just a money pit.

I work for a company that has decided that any contract under 5K ARR can’t get anything other than copy and pasted answers and certainly can’t get real help (even if they did find a real bug).

The support team are just told to give them the runaround until they leave, as by making a support request they become no longer profitable.

Can only imagine how true that would be of phones and user accounts.

Are practices like the above allowable under FTC rules?

What a short cited attitude. Eventuality, the bigger contracts will start to leave because they’ll have no idea if they’re above or below that profit threshold.

To where? Every corporation is going this route.

None of us are planning to be here for long, so anything that can work in quarters at the cost of the future is fine.

Why not charge for support? And waive those charges for clients above some (public) spending threshold (to reduce the perverse incentive of making the product difficult to use so you can profit on support)?

Because then they both lose out on that "free" 5k And reduce sales as a result of fee aversion and "unknowability of cost" issue...

Just google A/B testing done on this already. Consumer behaviours are well established in this regard.

Counterpoint. A few weeks ago I called support because one of my pixel bud pro buds was buzzing constantly, even after factory reset. The rep asked me to do a few basic things and then offered me a full replacement without any hassle, on the same call.

Perhaps Google support is bad, but it's not all bad.

"Inconsistently good" is still bad. It's just a kind of bad that makes it difficult for people to coordinate and realize that it's bad.

It even seems like it might be a strategic choice. If you want to reduce costs by 15%, you only have to nuke 15% of returns. The other 85% you can be nice to, and they'll go to bat for you when the 15% start complaining.

I actually had a decent experience with their support on my Pixel 1 with shoddy bluetooth. It was one call to tech support and they basically just said it isn't worth troubleshooting and arranged the entire replacement on the spot. It was a big reason why I went with a Pixel 3 and Pixel 6 on my upgrades.

Why we got the run-around treatment with my wife's device? Unsure. But I'm not willing to play those games down the line so we're going to find other devices on next replacement.

Yeah, I had a problem with a friends Pixel, sim tray snapped off which is clearly a design fault given how soft the plastic is, with a sim stuck inside the phone.

Absolutely hopeless support - only option was to send it back to them which requires a 7-10 day fix time. No option for a hold being placed on the card, replacement device sent and then the hold released when they received the new phone.

They've clearly realized this is unacceptable given newer phones now have options for in person servicing.

Yep. I am at the point I am one more poor Google customer service experience away from simply jumping ship to Apple.

Whenever I deal with an iPhone issue on behalf of my wife the Apple Store/customer service experience is stellar - an hour max and you're on your way with a new device. Google is like pulling teeth, and you likely will be shunted to third parties to boot. I value their warranty at $0.

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