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1. strong+(OP)[view] [source] 2021-02-08 15:21:31
I'd bet Amazon has more retail customers trying to get disputes resolved, than Google has business customers attempting to do the same, yet Amazon manages to get a human on the other end of the line. And I'd bet that Amazon's disputes have far less monetary value per incident. Maybe apples to oranges, but it's impressive from a customer service perspective.
replies(4): >>a1o+84 >>anm89+qc >>mounta+Am >>ssully+En
2. a1o+84[view] [source] 2021-02-08 15:39:23
>>strong+(OP)
Microsoft and IBM are also companies with a lot more humans available. I have solved lots of things with phonecalls be business or as a customer. You need to be really big to get humans on Google side.
replies(2): >>whimsi+75 >>webmob+ND
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3. whimsi+75[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 15:43:45
>>a1o+84
And it absolutely bites them in the ass. Google's awful reputation at the enterprise level is probably why GCP is struggling to make it among that sector.
replies(2): >>castle+I8 >>hinkle+Wl
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4. castle+I8[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 15:58:41
>>whimsi+75
It's in Google's culture, too. A few years ago when I was learning GCP for a role and wanted to know if they had an AWS Firehose equivalent, I asked on their Slack and the response I got from a GCP rep was "just make a process in Dataflow." Doing that would have cost far, far more than Firehose costs, not to mention the dev/troubleshooting time.
replies(1): >>oillio+UN
5. anm89+qc[view] [source] 2021-02-08 16:16:13
>>strong+(OP)
The fact that someone else might be worse says nothing about this issue.
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6. hinkle+Wl[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 16:56:45
>>whimsi+75
They are becoming the AT&T Wireless of Cloud providers.

If you have no problems, it's fine. The first time you need to call customer support, you start wondering if TMobile or somebody else would be a better provider.

replies(2): >>mikeho+dE >>time0u+TX
7. mounta+Am[view] [source] 2021-02-08 16:59:52
>>strong+(OP)
Amazon has tremendous numbers of contractors and employees who handle customer issues, seller issues, and partner issues.

Google, on the other hand, pretends to be a good provider of lots of software services, but if anything ever goes wrong with any of them, you are screwed, including if it's a premium service that you pay for. This is why you should never allow Google to control anything that is important to a business of yours or to your personal life.

Google has tons of sales reps on the ad side who will be happy to give you a rationale on why you should spend money more aggressively on their platform, but even they will sometimes be useless at fixing problems unless you are a truly massive customer for them. If you ever need to talk to a sales rep, you can get a Google ad person on the phone in minutes, but they will tell you to bid more aggressively and to buy more display ads.

If your problem with Google is that you aren't spending enough money on display ads, they're Johnny on the spot; they've got 9 trillion hammers that they want to sell you for that particular nail. Need help with anything else substantial related to a Google service? We have a robot you can e-mail for that, and that robot will ignore you.

8. ssully+En[view] [source] 2021-02-08 17:04:34
>>strong+(OP)
Yeah I have been pleasantly surprised with how good Amazon's customer support is. In contrast I've had a Google wifi and home device stop working on me, and it was nearly impossible to get in touch with a customer support rep from Google. At this point, I refuse to purchase Google device because I don't know what to do if I have a problem with it.
replies(2): >>moksly+DE >>tgtwea+Qa2
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9. webmob+ND[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 18:24:44
>>a1o+84
Yeah, the clients are different - Microsoft and IBM target enterprise clients and they know that if a client can't reach someone on the phone, they will lose their business. Google on the other hand is a business-to-consumer business trying now to be a business-to-business one, and still thinks that it can ignore the "older" generation and target the current generation who are more familiar with interacting with automated response systems. It's already biting them in the arse.
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10. mikeho+dE[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 18:27:25
>>hinkle+Wl
> They are becoming the AT&T Wireless of Cloud providers.

On that note - I have AT&T. I'm fine with AT&T, except that group MMS / messaging is broken with non-iPhone users. I've tried calling support, walking into a store, and now - simply given up. I tried two other carriers a few years ago, and had far worse problems, so I just suck it up and call people when we have to communicate. At least that part works.

You sum it up well.

replies(1): >>tppiot+9O
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11. moksly+DE[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 18:29:14
>>ssully+En
In the public sector in Europe we’ve long liked Microsoft because they actually sell support. When they decided to push 365 additions as enabled by default and no easy way to turn it off, we suddenly had a couple of thousand employees trying this new teams thing out. After a few hours on the phone with Seattle, it was possible to disable, and later Microsoft changed policy to let their enterprise customers decided what features are on. We have a lot of those stories, and it’s something people often overlook when they wonder why the public sector favours Microsoft. We have more than a quarter century of great relations.

When AWS first arrived they had the same automated support system that Google does, and they didn’t really want to comply with GDPR. We probably would’ve gone with Azure anyway because it’s the easy option for operations when you’re already in bed with 365, but the Amazon/Google attitude meant they weren’t even considered beyond the first look.

Since then AWS has overtaken Azure in GDPR compliance and the availability of their support, and we now have several supplier operated solutions in AWS.

Google is still on the “do not buy from this company” list.

But maybe they just aren’t interested. They are primarily an advertising company after all.

replies(1): >>grawpr+lY
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12. oillio+UN[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 19:13:49
>>castle+I8
What did you expect the response to be. Should they have said, "No we don't have that, you should probably just use AWS"?

They didn't have exactly what you wanted so provided a workaround that would solve the problem.

replies(2): >>castle+fR >>__davi+Um1
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13. tppiot+9O[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 19:14:52
>>mikeho+dE
This bit me after switching from Mint to Verizon. I thought it was the Verizon's fault for a long time, but Reset All Settings on my iPhone finally fixed it.

https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/switched-to-verizon-iphone-...

replies(1): >>mikeho+5F1
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14. castle+fR[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 19:29:12
>>oillio+UN
I think the point is obvious, that AWS is far more customer-centric than GCP. Google's gotten better at this but at the time, it seemed to me that GCP was more an amalgam of individual projects developed separately while AWS approached it more from the user's perspective, and that showed in the toolsets available.
replies(1): >>oillio+qCa
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15. time0u+TX[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 20:03:13
>>hinkle+Wl
What an excellent analogy.

Google is AT&T: technically great, but customer support is intentionally and aggressively incompetent.

AWS is Verizon: technically good with some weird rough edges and legacy stuff, but customer support will bend over backwards for you.

Does that mean Azure is T-mobile? I have little experience with either.

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16. grawpr+lY[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 20:05:17
>>moksly+DE
Not a big Microsoft fan in general, but I will say, I can agree with their support being great for commercial customers.

A couple years ago, there was an update that affected a bunch of embedded devices and caused some machines to go down. Luckily our machines were on an older version, but another shop we worked with got hit by it.

Within an hour of Microsoft being alerted to the issue they'd begun working on the problem and within two hours machines were back up and running again after Microsoft pushed an update.

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17. __davi+Um1[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 22:13:20
>>oillio+UN
> Should they have said, "No we don't have that, you should probably just use AWS"?

Yes? If you can't trust your rep to give accurate recommendations, then what's the point of even having one?

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18. mikeho+5F1[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-08 23:59:31
>>tppiot+9O
Huh. That rather ominous reset option did it. Why thank you kind stranger. :-)
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19. tgtwea+Qa2[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-09 04:54:15
>>ssully+En
I tried to contact nest to order a replacement plug/harness (for a 1 year old $150 smoke detector...) and after getting run around for 10+ emails I was finally told "sorry we can't supply that part" and you're shit out of luck.

The cumulative time if took them to read and answer all of those emails (and cost) was definitely double that of just shipping the $1 part.

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20. oillio+qCa[view] [source] [discussion] 2021-02-11 20:13:16
>>castle+fR
I am really trying not to sound like a GCP fanboy, however:

I have never heard anyone say that the AWS toolset was anything but "an amalgam of individual projects developed separately." It is obvious from their UI that the different tools are run by different teams that have very different opinions on how things should be done. Just look at the various iterations of deployment management. ECS vs Lambda vs EKS vs classic EC2. All the UIs have different design standards and assumptions. It has gotten better over the years, but the AWS org chart is still peaking through the UI.

GCP is not much better. At least they had the advantage of starting later in the market cycle. They were able to see what worked and what didn't work at AWS and build a bit cleaner.

In the end we are talking about B2B systems targeting power user engineers. The control surfaces need to be powerful first, and easy to use is a distant second or third consideration.

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