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Comment by hansvm | Hacker News Reader

This isn't practical for everyone, but I've had good luck showing up to the Googleplex in person when their errors were too egregious.

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My latest protip when the normal procedure isn’t going anywhere is to send your complaint to a big org’s legal department, whether it’s of legal nature or not.

You can at least be assured the letter reader will be literate.

And might even get good support for wherever it ends up because it will be forwarded from the legal department.

This was a bank. Basically an extension of patio11’s advice to contact shareholder relations.

With the software giants, you get the best results by sending your complaint to Hacker News. Your issue will actually be noticed by someone who can help

Not at google, but someone took a plane ride to ask about a $20 billing error in person at a company I worked at. We definitely don't do in person customer support, and the flight must have been more than the billing error, so front desk gently encouraged him to fly back home and make sure someone responded to his ticket.

Why did they do that? Were you ignoring their tickets? Is your service really crucial to them? Was it a Saudi prince?

Now _that_ is how to make a customer know they have no value! Bravo.

I sincerely hope (and assume) “make” was a type for “made” there. That the front desk staffer, not the aggrieved customer, “made” somebody respond to the customer’s original ticket.

This looks like something out of the 1937 book How to Win Friends and Influence People and ends with "they prospered together forever and customer would later find the mistake from his side".

I can see this approach being very entertaining at scale.

I really want to hear this story. How did it not end with you having a conversation with a rentacop?

It probably went pretty decently until the security changed after the youtube incident.

Did some preliminary searching and couldn't find anything, what incident are you referring to?

Probably this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shootin...

How? Is the receptionist able to help you?

By finding the person who can help you?

They give you a direct line or email to whoever can help you. Everyone I met was really nice. It's like a proper customer support channel.

By being an actual sapient being instead of a poorly-designed customer "support" algorithm.

Google is not some black box. It’s made up of people. Are we so used to lack of service online that in-person service is now unheard of?

Yes but they can also very well say "sorry, we're not tech support, bye" and stand there looking at you. This is exceptionally easy to do if there are 5 people a day coming in for that reason.

And they can have you trespassed. Hang around after that and the cops can arrest you.

But why would they when it's probably really easy for them to just help you?

Have you considered that getting someone arrested after you ruin a major source of their income is potentially not the most polite thing to do?

Law doesn't reward politeness. If you have a problem sue them, don't trespass.

Governments should figure out a way to allow regular people to sue giants without going bankrupt.

You act like an organization is a single person. The person saying "Sorry, I can't help you" when you visit Google headquarters is not the one ruining your income.

That’s nice, but if Big Tech doesn’t let me say “no” to their software prompts and questions, I’m saying “no” to leaving until my issue is fixed.

This is very pessimistic, not everyone is out to get everyone else.

Routing people to the right place is quite literally their job.

This is why a company I know had an armed guard at the door after an angry dispossessed former customer turned up and gave the reception desk PTSD.

Don't do this.

I find it highly unlikely that someone politely asked for help having an issue resolved and it gave the receptionist PTSD and required armed security. I expect you're instead speaking about a situation where someone showed up and acted in a violent/threatening manner, which the post you are replying to did not endorse, which should not be used to justify keeping upstanding people from trying to get support.

No part of Mountain View is set up to handle the queue of customers of Google seeking restitution. Other major corporates have this problem too. You don't fix the problem with your gas account overcharging by going to the Exxon head office.

Google is a bit of a shit company when it comes to customer service, but suggesting you can front into their space to get it addressed is really not ok.

The problem is the lack of a real service you really can approach. Not, that they wind up needing rent-a-cop in the lobby.

If people casually recommend simply visiting the campus of Apple, Meta, Google to get customer disputes settled, then its a low bar prediction it's going to get bad.

Actually, you can usually get a lot of help if you show up in person at a major company site and politely ask.

Nobody really wants to call the security/police on a random guy, especially if he is not a complete weirdo.

Saying "bit of a shit" about company who practically destroyed 20 years of someone data,by blocking account against all facts customer and police provided it not "a bit". This is pure evil. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-reported-dad-police-p...

There's going to be a lot more of this happening over the next couple of years.

It made me disconcertingly furious on behalf of that customer to read your message, which, however you meant it, echoed in my mind as "you have no hope, don't show up in person, don't do anything except accept that BigCo screwed you, the world is unfair and you lost hahahahaha".

We might wish for every customer to muster infinite patience no matter how poorly treated, but when a company behaves as unreasonably as described in this story about YouTube, it's not solely the fault of the customer finally losing their shit when "front desk" turns into "front line".

"Hire armed guards to protect the company from its own customers" is a wonderfully apt summary of the modern tech approach to customer service.

If a company doesn't have a real human helpdesk for dispute resolution, fronting onto the people who have to man a desk to direct visitors to the right meeting room, or handle incoming calls to corporate offices, is just wrong.

I'm a customer of google. I pay them money. I would never, EVER recommend that people front into the Mountain View, or any other google office worldwide to discuss their issues. Never.

It's not wrong to talk to the people at the front desk about their company's bullshit practices. I don't have to be a customer, and neither do you have to be an employee. Dealing with people who need help dealing with your company is not going to fucking kill you.

If the company makes the person manning the front desk the only human customers can get in touch with, that's on the company, not customers with a critical issue who just needs a person to understand and rectify the company's mistake.

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