Given the hundreds of millions of users, tens of millions of webmasters, and many advertisers and publishers that Google interacts with, it would be difficult to have one-on-one conversations with all of them even if everyone at Google did nothing but try to provide that support.
Not saying it is easy or free to get there, but the same arguments can mostly be said for Microsoft and they seem to be doing pretty OK.
I've had excellent support from them, 24/7, on the phone, including weekends, where I've been assigned one person and one person only to fix some critical issues which had to be dealt with before monday 7am.
I have nothing but praise for the Microsoft support team. However just trying to find non-automated support for my google-services seems impossible.
I do realize Microsoft and google has different business models and don't mean to come off hostile, but Google upping their customer-service standards a little bit wouldn't hurt.
Your last sentence is dead-on. Microsoft ascribes to the traditional enterprise-y business model. The products work okay but often need support, and if you pay enough you get great support (and if you don't pay enough you get passable support). This has made them (and many other companies) a ton of money, but Google is absolutely killing all competition by following a very different path. It's hard to say how much of Google's success is due to their aversion to acting like a regular enterprise company, but I think it's safe to say they won't be drastically changing tack any time soon. The stories like this of people getting screwed are unfortunate - it's collateral damage.
Collateral damage? Well, then it appears Google's experiencing some blow back, and deservedly so. It shouldn't matter what trails your blazing, you can't leave your customers burning in the blaze behind you.
PayPal also grew this way, with collateral damage - until they were slapped with several class action lawsuits, which went through, and (I believe?) they ended up being at least partially classified as a bank. Or threatened with being classified as a bank. Something to that order.
In any event, they really had to clean up their act.
That's going to happen with Google, too, I would expect, and there's no way they are going to be surprised.
If you ask me, it's no different than a chemical manufacturing company deciding that it is more cost-effective to pay the EPA fines than to clean up their act. It's about pure numbers.
Not saying it is easy or free to get there, but the same arguments can mostly be said for Microsoft and they seem to be doing pretty OK.
I've had excellent support from them, 24/7, on the phone, including weekends, where I've been assigned one person and one person only to fix some critical issues which had to be dealt with before monday 7am.
I have nothing but praise for the Microsoft support team. However just trying to find non-automated support for my google-services seems impossible.
I do realize Microsoft and google has different business models and don't mean to come off hostile, but Google upping their customer-service standards a little bit wouldn't hurt.