The ‘Google Customer Service’ Oxymoron

Posted on | July 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

A recent experience with a Google customer service rep left me appalled at the shockingly poor customer service. Google is not known for its customer service finesse – the number of complaints online abound. The other major search engines do not set much of a standard to overcome and with Google’s virtual monopoly on online dollars, the company appears to be entrenched in the old business model which Robin Sharma very accurately describes in his newest book, The Leader Who Had No Title’. Succinctly, it’s take the money and run. If you lose one customer there’s plenty more out there. Unfortunately Google’s monopolistic reign is heightened by the fact that most customers really need Google to run a profitable business. Ironically, it is the searcher who decides which search engine to use, and Google’s focus is on the searcher, not the advertiser.

Allow me to elucidate my experience…

The Problem

I emailed the Google rep explaining the dilemma and requested some assistance in the form of specific reports I was hoping to receive from Google, which I knew Google was very capable of generating. This is how the conversation started:

…. I have another request for an Impression Share report for a client

If there is any average CPC trending you could provide for the industry that would be great too. In May, we lost out on positioning heavily for this account and I would like to be able to see what the market is looking like.

A week later, after some to and fro to clarify the request, I was informed that I would be provided with useful information of market leader averages.

I was sent a category assessment based on leading advertisers, showing me the average Q1 spend of the category leader vs. the client in question. It was like comparing David to Goliath as the client is a relatively small player in the market.

The report compared standard metrics between the category leader and the client for the period Q1, first in search and then the content network.

Apart from further validating that the client holds a relatively small share in the market, there were two things that were very wrong with the report that was provided:

It was for the period Q1 – whereas the problem identified had started in May in Q2
The client does not advertise in the content network

No time was taken to listen and understand the problem, to provide an appropriate solution.

The Pain Continues

I indicated that the report did not address the problems the client had been experiencing and reiterated my original request:

What I was hoping for is an impression share report as I originally
indicated or some type of report showing the trending of CPCs over the last few months.

Following this request, I was then sent a CPC vs. CTR trending report for Q1 for the top converting keywords. This was sent by another rep that had seemingly taken over my enquiry.

Yet again, after clearly indicating the type of information I was seeking, I received client specific information, that was retrievable through the account itself. Again, it was for the period Q1. The problems started occurring in May and here I am being sent a report from January to March.

I then addressed the new rep and explained the problem in detail, again I requested an impression share report and finally, after a third attempt I did receive some insights into CPC trending and impression share data.

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Perhaps Google makes such easy money that it does not concern itself with ‘working for its money’ by providing quality customer service. I am not going to get into a philosophical monologue about this issue. If there was ever an opportunity to snatch market share from Google, this would be it. As the Yahoo! / Bing PPC transition begins to roll out in North America, they should most certainly pay attention to customer service. People are dying for a search engine that gives a damn and does not take dinosaur years and multiple explanations to provide a smidgen of value.