

Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, and what I learned. - jjkmk
http://www.sultansolutions.com/google-voice-lost-number/

======
silverbax88
This week I had an epiphany when dealing with both Google and Microsoft on
support issues. The issues are this: when you need an answer to a question
about something from your bank, such as, say, a fee that suddenly appears on
your statement, you can pick up the phone and find someone at the company who
will at least give you slow service to answer your question.

But with Google and Microsoft, there is no support department. You need to
know how a specific service is charged? Good luck. You need to know why a
needed parameter is missing on their API documentation? Forget it.

Basically companies like Google and Microsoft want to toss their products out
into the wild and then go back behind closed doors to noodle on something
else. It baffles me as to why enterprise businesses are able to do this.

~~~
qeorge
Microsoft has always provided _amazing_ support for our Office 365 account
(hosted Exchange, like Google Apps). Its a paid service though
($6/user/month), so perhaps that's the difference in our experiences.

Most recently, I filed a support ticket online and my phone rang a few minutes
later. On the other end was an MS support rep who stayed on the phone with me
for 40 minutes, including a screen share, until my issue was resolved. At the
end of the call he left me with his direct # and email, and said that I could
contact him directly with any future inquiries.

Really can't ask for much more than that.

~~~
mattmanser
I just want to echo this to make sure that everyone understands Google and
Microsoft are worlds apart on support.

We've all heard about the horror stories that it doesn't matter what you do
with Google you cannot get human support unless you get to the top of HN or
Reddit.

MS are totally different, they offer support for every service, you just have
to pay for it. I think they also offer different levels of support, some of
our programmers at a previous (small) company could talk to the Silverlight
team over problems they were having after it just came out.

Funnily enough, when I google "google paid support" the top result is this
little (frightening) gem:

[http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...](http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1752770)

Compare that to this, "microsoft paid support":

<http://support.microsoft.com/gp/services/en-id>

I'm in no way affiliated with MS, actually use Google Apps myself.

~~~
azylman
This "Google has no support" is a myth that I see consistently repeated on
Hacker News that I can't understand it's repeated. Google's support situation
is actually the same as Microsoft's: if you pay (i.e. have a Google Apps for
Business) account, you get 24/7 phone support. I'm pretty sure that it's for
any service linked to your Google Apps for Business account (including Voice),
but not completely sure since I've never had to use it.

You can find it here: <http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py>

~~~
mattmanser
No it's not, you can't get consumer support for Google, you can for MS. You
can't pick just one of their many services and go, "look at this one!".

I just went their with my free apps account and it's not exactly forthcoming
about how either.

~~~
azylman
What are you talking about? I posted a link with their support options and
your response is "No, you can't get support". Clearly, you can - I linked to
it. If I go there with my free apps account it's crystal clear, in big
letters: "Email and phone support: Not available for the free edition of
Google Apps. Find out about upgrading to Google Apps for Business."

------
mgkimsal
"I own a Samsung Galaxy 3, a Nexus 7, run over 10 paid Google Biz Apps
accounts, and will continue to use and recommend Google services to my clients
and friends."

Why? Vote with your dollars. Oh, wait - you're already _paying_ them and
realized you have no reliable support.

Look, I use gmail too, and google search, and adwords. The gmail going away
might be somewhat problematic, but I also run my own mail servers for other
addresses, and shifting to those as my primary for everything wouldn't be too
hard - a small PITA, but not devastating.

I expect a better level of service for something I'm paying cash for. To
continue to support them just means its harder for other companies that might
be providing good service to get traction.

I've recommended twilio and tropo to various people, and the first reaction is
"oh it's like google voice?" the second reaction is "WTF? I have to PAY?!
Google Voice is free!" This seems suspiciously like MS 15 years ago using
profits their dominance (monopoly) in one market to get in to another market.

~~~
jdboyd
When I look at the web pages for Twilio and Tropo, it isn't clear that they
are actually replacements for Google Voice.

~~~
taf2
I think this is an appropriate time for me to mention the service
calltrackingmetrics.com. We offer a service, that allows you to manage the
call flow as well as track many other features of a call - but in this case I
believe the major selling point is we have people who answer the phone and
work really hard to make sure your phone numbers port over to our system
without issue. The Twilio team also helps make sure this process is
exceptional.

------
raverbashing
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was shut out of Google Apps (yes, the
paying one) for "abuse"

Just like that, leaving them locked out of their (company) emails.

There is a support line but it's helpless, it said "Your account may be
unlocked in 72h"

Yes, _may_ be unlocked. This is not a proper answer to a paying customer
Google.

So I lost my confidence in Google Apps, if I need a similar service better
contract from somebody else.

(It's been a while but I still haven't heard the rest of the story)

~~~
amalag
What good alternatives are there to Google apps? I may hate them for not
having support, but because it's such a good product i may be forced to use
it.

~~~
ditojim
You get support if you pay for Google Apps for Business.

~~~
amalag
This person claims he was locked out of his paid google apps for business
account. I think one solution is to purchase through a google apps provider.
You pay the same costs but they get some cut of the money for providing
service. I think this is the model Google wants to implement, have another
company handle simple support and they can handle real issues when contacted
by the company, not the end users. I think this actually happened for us, but
it is invisible. We had an issue with Mac mail and google apps when we
started. It wasn't behaving properly. We contacted our provider who I think
contacted google and an engineer actually looked at the logs and explained it
as a bug in Mac mail which after a timeout was initiating more connections and
flooding the server.

Anyway I think google apps providers probably can provide sufficient support,
maybe google voice just needs to get there.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"This person claims he was locked out of his paid google apps for business
account."

Yes he did. And he didn't include what his service representative told him.
You see on my paid account under the tools "Manage this account" there is a
support tab, and that tab lets you send email to a real person with your
account id and generally they respond reasonably quickly. So what what did
they say? Now the poster says "locked out of his account" what did that mean?
Can't login? Or can't send email? Can't use Drive? Can't use Calendar? Was it
just him or everyone who uses the account? When you're paying for a service,
if your service provider denies you that service you can sue them more easily.

Now I have been emailed when my logging application tried to send a bunch of
emails, I was notified that it had been 'spamming' and disabled until the spam
stopped. I sent back a nice explanation of what our systems were doing, and a
whitelist of addresses that could send that sort of email, and they set it up.
No more issue.

The bottom line is that there are missing bits in this anecdote that would
help give context to the 'abuse' comment. But they are missing.

~~~
ditojim
So I am actually a Google Apps Reseller. Our customers can go directly to
Google for support, or through us. Most choose to come through us at no
additional cost, some pay us for a higher level of support. Generally, we
solve the easy stuff that doesn't actually require Google's intervention much
faster than Google would for our customers, and are able typically able to get
resolution to Google Support tickets for a couple reasons: (1) we are very
experienced interfacing with Google Support (2) Because we are in the top tier
of Google Apps Resellers (Enterprise Premier), our customers actually get a
higher level of support by default.

The guy below who had another reseller claim they have all the Google
Engineers on chat...that is probably true but they don't handle support
issues. They will tell you to open a ticket, even if they are your friend.

Not sure why my comment above got down-voted. You DO get support from Google
by paying for your Google Apps account.

------
wtallis
When Google Voice was new, I signed up and got a number, but my account never
got properly activated to send or receive calls. After more than a week of
trying to get support, I payed the fee to get a different number.
Unsurprisingly, that number didn't work either, but the financial transaction
_did_ at least get me a line of communication through which I could dispute
the charge on my credit card and force Google to react. Two or three days
later, my account was fixed and the number switch and fee were reverted.

Bringing a financial transaction into the mix is always the most reliable way
to get in touch. Google may play hard-to-get with their users, but they can't
do that to a bank.

~~~
tedivm
This person paid to port their number into google, from my understanding. So
there was a financial transaction- google's complete lack of anything
resembling customer support is the issue here.

~~~
jjkmk
Thats right, I did pay to port the number in. And then I paid to buy the
number back (google must have seen this, so they sent me a refund today).

------
davidw
I had my own Google frustrations lately:

[http://journal.dedasys.com/2012/10/16/the-dreaded-google-
loc...](http://journal.dedasys.com/2012/10/16/the-dreaded-google-lockdown)

Nothing as serious as a phone number that was already in use, but frustrating
nonetheless.

What's even more frustratingly difficult is that they do provide a tremendous
amount of value with a series of fairly integrated products.... leaving would
be very difficult and costly.

------
ChuckMcM
It is true that Google has no support for free (or mostly free) services but
they do generally for paid services. When I have issues with my google hosted
(and paid for) domain a real person answers the email and follows up. At some
point I expect them to just flip the bit and bring up a customer support
service for 'real'. I suppose they could buy zendesk or something like that
but here is an interesting question, how much would you _pay_ for your Google
stuff? A gmail account, a hosted domain, docs, etc? $10/month? $100/month?

At NetApp I got a chance to sit in on some meetings where support costs were
being evaluated and there is a pretty clear calculus that can be done. (I
recommend all engineers at an enterprise products company experience it since
the 'cost' of s bug (and thus the value of testing) is pretty clear) So I
wonder if Google decided to add revenue from all of their products in this way
(clearly they do that right now for Google Apps) would folks sign up? I know a
number of Youtube 'publishers' who would if only to have someone to call up
when they get a robo-takedown.

------
option_greek
Something has to be done about these kind of goof-ups when dealing with Google
customer service. It's ridiculous that their primary contact point for
servicing paid customers is a online forum manned by volunteers.

~~~
mgkimsal
quit using them. perhaps people dropping service with them MIGHT send a
message? Companies that have has waiting lists for people to use their free
service don't usually seem to give a hoot about customer service.

~~~
option_greek
IMHO, it should be stronger than that. When they charge people money for
products, they are responsible for supporting them whether they accept it or
not. Aren't there any legal protections for customers in scenarios like this ?

~~~
dangrossman
> Aren't there any legal protections for customers in scenarios like this ?

Sure, but to avail yourself of these legal protections, you need to go through
the legal system -- filing a suit in court. The law might guarantee you'll get
what you paid for, but it can't force Google to offer phone support.

~~~
damncabbage
What about Small Claims court?

~~~
antidoh
A _lot_ of people in small claims court would at best irritate them. Best is
to just leave.

------
ed209
I used to look for the best product on the market when I was considering a new
service.

I no longer do that. I now look for the product whose support will be there
for me when disaster strikes.

No matter what product you choose, at some point, something bad will happen.

------
tga
Besides the support issues, it's worth noting that Google Voice is also
impossible to use when you are (temporarily) outside of the US due to their
braindead geographical IP limitation that blocks you from even accessing the
site.

For my voicemail-to-email (and occasional forwarding, etc.) I am currently
using Sonetel (<http://www.sonetel.com>). $1/month for a US number and you can
contact real humans when things go wrong. (no affiliation, I'm just a happy
customer)

~~~
furyg3
This is just not true.

I'm from the US, living abroad. I registered for my google Apps account and GV
number while in the US (before I moved). I can log into GV just fine while
abroad (no VPN). My wife also has a google account (non-apps), with a GV
number that works just fine while abroad.

Since I don't have a 'real' US phone number, my GV account is a software phone
only, ringing in Gmail (computer) or Talkatone (iphone).

I have also rigged up a Twilio # which forwards to my non-US cell phone so
that I can use GV when my 3G connection is not so great. This is the only
stupid part of using GV when you are abroad, I'd happily give my money
directly to google but instead I have to give it to Twilio for a hacked
solution.

~~~
tga
Thank you for the fact check, I am happy to be wrong on this.

It looks like things have changed since I last gave Google Voice a try. It
used to be that they would just ignore you while physically outside the US,
now it looks like they behave reasonably. Great news!

------
sejje
Has google ever commented on the "no support" policy?

It's incredible to me that this is their stance.

It also seems to directly violate "Do no evil" pretty frequently--effectively
shutting down someone's livelihood, in this case.

~~~
emmett
Google's policy isn't "do no evil". It's "Don't be evil". Subtle, but
important.

~~~
bravoyankee
Your insightful comment made my day (and freaked me out a bit too). So true.

------
amalag
So the amount of money google needs to pay dedicated support staff to field
customer complaints will not be covered by their Google voice revenue. Or they
simply don't care and a few numbers falling through the cracks won't hurt
their revenue.

------
tammer
Wow, based on the title I assumed the issue was resolved easily.

Almost two weeks with no number, then being forced to _buy the number back_?

------
lazyjones
Great article that highlights the main issues with fast-growing billion-dollar
behemoths like Google: "[...] I was so dreamy eyed about Google that I didn’t
take the proper precautions [...]". It's insane that they get away with
providing 1st level support for critical infrastructure to paying customers
using a forum manned by volunteers!

~~~
mvgoogler
Did the OP ever say that he was a paying customer?

I don't see anything concrete in the article. He says he transferred his
_business_ number over, but I don't see any mention that he had a "Google Apps
for Your Business" (i.e. paid) account.

I'm fairly sure that Google Apps For Business does, in fact, provide telephone
support.

<disclaimer> I'm an engineer and not an expert on support options</disclaimer>

------
tlrobinson
TL;DR "Google didn't help at all. I got lucky and was able to re-register with
my number before someone else did."

------
zdw
Is there a comparable solution to Google Voice?

I'd like voicemail, web and phone apps, text message support, and the ability
to port a number in.

Bonus points for fax support, which GV doesn't have.

I'm sure that others are looking for a similar solution in light of this.

~~~
druiid
For free? No. For pay, yes. There are tooons of people in this space. This is
one of the first-movers I am aware of: <http://www.phone.com/features/>

------
Tmmrn
What about just calling the general google phone number and asking them to
connect you to someone who can help with google voice?

<http://www.google.com/intl/en/contact/>

~~~
silverbax88
I am not trying to be snide, but you must not have ever tried that. Finding
someone to answer a question at Google will require some serious legwork.

~~~
michaelhoffman
Have you ever tried that?

------
damncabbage
Offtopic: I'm sorry, but the font you're using is horrendously unreadable; the
"i"s (for example) are mostly missing:

<http://i.imgur.com/cwn1Q.png>

~~~
Tomdarkness
Looks perfectly fine to me, guess it must be some kind of problem specific to
your setup.

~~~
stan_rogers
Most of the page is in Verdana, and looks fine. _Some parts_ of the page are
in Vegur Light Regular, and while it works when used in headings, it's too
light for body copy, even if pseudo-bolded (it's not a full pixel wide on most
screens). There are only a handful of lines set in Vegur at body size in the
article.

------
brindle
Google does provide customer support but the end user is not the customer. The
customer is the consumer of the data that is gathered on the usage data that
is collected from the end user.

I lost an gmail email account, and I had no recourse. In all fairness I was
not actively using it. I had registered and received the account so I could
have my name. When I decided to start using it, the password no longer worked.

I also had an issue with Skype and I was paid customer. No tech support. I
discontinued that account

I have a Google voice account and I use it as my primary phone number. It
would hurt to lose or have issues with this account.

------
stretchwithme
I'm surprised the article didn't end with explaining how he got his phone
number out of Google Voice.

------
bravoyankee
Google, I don't get you. You treat free service users like kings and paying
customers like serfs. What's up with that?

