I've said this multiple times before, but it warrants repeating. Customer care is Google's Achilles' heel. I'm mostly OK with them having little support for free products, but when there are thousands of dollars on the line with AdWords or AdSense I expect them to step up their game.
I'm convinced that offering prompt customer service for these two services alone would lead them to make far more money than they'd have invested in it.
Frustrated customers can become competitors at times. Google has been lucky thanks to its virtual monopoly on search (tough from a technical standpoint) and ads (tough from a business standpoint), but they need to be careful. Technology has a habit of changing things quickly.
Is there a business opportunity in here somewhere?
Can someone sell 3rd-party support for Google? I know it sounds crazy, but there has to be a way to "arbitrage" their lack of support. In a sense, that's what SEO consultants are: they know how to make things happen despite Google's obscurity.
Its already happening in Google Apps. Technically Google provides free support and phone support if you pay $50/year but if you signup with a reseller they also provide support and usually have a contact at Google for any issue they can't resolve.
So you are arguing that Google can't improve their service in any way because if there were any improvements to be made they would already have implemented them?
No I am arguing that if Google wanted to improve their customer service they would have done so and that they don't need to because they have more customers for ad spots then they have ad spots to run.
I have tried to get customer service from Google. I spend between $17k to 20k a month on Google adwords campaigns. I have spent a total of $247,907.40 on Google Adwords.
I have given this more thought. If Google had better adwords customer service then some people would have an unfair advantage. Whoever could get the most help out of Google would have the best campaign.
So Google runs the Adwords kind of like eBay runs auctions. You can't get extra help from eBay to auction your items better.
However, the Adwords system is complicated because unlike eBay where you can easily see what others are doing to compete against you, you have no idea what others on Google are doing to compete against you and you have no idea of why certain things happen.
I'm convinced that offering prompt customer service for these two services alone would lead them to make far more money than they'd have invested in it.
Frustrated customers can become competitors at times. Google has been lucky thanks to its virtual monopoly on search (tough from a technical standpoint) and ads (tough from a business standpoint), but they need to be careful. Technology has a habit of changing things quickly.