Adwords is Google’s cash cow which gets millions of customers who want to advertise online.  But, is just getting those millions customers enough to run the business or you need to provide good support to the customer as well?  I suppose the latter is generally true.  I once read on Don Dodge’s blog about Google customer support but did not really relate to it because I have never had a need to contact Google customer support.  Don wrote about why Google will fail in enterprise software market and related the concept to near zero customer support.  That analogy fits very well with AdWords as it is a service used by businesses of all sizes.

Recently, one of my colleagues was trying to set up an ad campaign for a client when he got stuck with a peculiar problem of domain name being longer than 35 characters.  The ad was getting disapproved by AdWords system, so he filled up an exception request explaining the scenario.  Within few hours, he received a response from Google saying that he should use URL of the home page instead of other pages for ads.  Needless to say that it was an automated response because it was clearly mentioned that the domain name itself was longer than 35 characters.  He again filled up the exception request and clearly mentioned that he is trying to use the home page URL only.  The AdWords customer support again responded with the same canned answer.

Tired of trying the exception request procedure he sought help from an AdWords Customer Support agent on a chat.  If you wish to have some fun, just read the chat transcript:

Damn it, they don’t even have any standard turnaround time for customer requests and this is the case of a user who is willing to pay Google.  Amazingly, Google also sent a feedback form after this chat session which mentioned that they use it for improving the service.  I am sure that either nobody fills that form or it just goes into a database with no one looking at it ever.  May be Google is trying to run some algorithms to understand the text and keywords stored in that database

Google needs to work upon improving their customer support system if they want to compete in the business software and applications market.  I have always been an ardent user of Google products and services but it is just their ignorant approach towards customer support which puts me off.

Have you ever had an experience of contacting Google customer support?  I know there will not be many people but those who have had this opportunity, please share your experience.

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