Less than a week after Google released their new phone, the Nexus One, customers are already having trouble with it and Google’s customer support is failing.
Advertisers who started advertising on Google long before the company went public might remember the times when support for AdWords was abysmal, at best. It looks like Google is repeating this performance with their mobile handset offering.
Customers who rushed to buy the new Google mobile handset are facing some initial, rather regular difficulties with the product. The only real problem, though, seems to be the fact that Google is ill-equipped to deal with these complaints.
One customer on the Google forums claims to have been shuttled between the manufacturer, HTC, and the service provider, T-mobile, four times before being ultimately turned over to Google, where customer problems are not resolved.
Unlike most other companies that launch a new product, Google does not have a customer service group in place, where users can actually talk to someone and sort out problems they are facing with their newly purchased phone.
Google only offers an online / email service for Nexus One customer complaints, and they say that they will get back to the customers in 48 hours, which is not only too long compared to any other telephone vendor, but quite unacceptable in this day and age.
One common source of complaints is people who feel that they are eligible for the subsidised version of the phone, while Google says that they are not.
Other complainants say they have not received an order confirmation even 3 days after placing the order.
Google seems to reply to complaints via some sort of automated system or by having an employee simply copy and paste standard replies from the help documentation.
Android developers are also complaining that they are unable to test their software without buying a Nexus One phone, and hence they are unable to solve any service related complaints.
Users are clearly annoyed at the state of affairs and they are justified in making a noise when they do not get good customer service after paying $529 for a product.
