[m_st]

I love that comment. This is how support is handled these days.

If you want to know whether a famous Windows audio app works on Surface X (ARM), just ask them on Twitter because the web site sucks and mails aren't replied. If you have an issue with your groceries, just call them out on Twitter because in the store they don't care. For big tech, use HN. Fine.

[rosndo]

> This is how support is handled these days.

These days? When was this not a standard practice for the financial industry?

Most of the time when a bank (or similar) decides to close your account they literally can’t even discuss the reasons with you without putting themselves in jeopardy.

[valdiorn]

It's anti money laundering regulation, and yes under no circumstances are you allowed to tip off the client that he's being investigated. You are literally obligated to lie if they ask and say there's an undetermined hold-up or something like that. If you don't you become criminally liable, even if the customer is found to not have broken any laws.

Work for a hedge fund under both US and UK regulatory authority.

[rosndo]

In practice this also makes it rather challenging to discuss non-AML issues with clients, because if you’re always willing to discuss non-AML issues it quickly becomes clear which issues are AML issues.

[busymom0]

While I am not a fan of Amazon for other reasons, their chat support has been always outstanding for me.

[nickjj]

I have to agree. At a place I do work at I've contacted AWS support twice using their email support ticket system. Both times were quite pleasant.

Where pleasant in this case is the person replying took the time to read the words you wrote and confirmed that by prefacing most sentences with "so I see you're trying to do xyz", followed by a thorough and well thought out response with references and suggestions.

So many times I've emailed other places (multi-million dollar companies) where it's painfully clear the person replying didn't read anything and some tool scanned my email for keywords which they auto-replied with even though the response makes no sense based on what I wrote. Then it takes additional days and back and forths to get to the point where they understand the original email that was written, in which case it gets "escalated" to another support team / tier within the organization where the process starts again.

[gundmc]

Really? The last several times I've tried to contact support I have only been able to "chat" with some limited functionality chatbot that was clearly narrowly programmed for a few use cases.

No option to reach a human by phone, chat, email. It felt pretty awful.

Edit: I should clarify that I mean Amazon retail. I don't use AWS, but I imagine it has much better support.

[SteveMoody73]

I've never had an issue getting in touch with a human on Amazon. On the contact us page there's even an option for them to call you. Enter your phone number and they usually call in under a minute. This option is available in the UK at least.

[gundmc]

Maybe that's a UK regulation? I just tried navigating the maze of a customer service site from the US again and can't find any apparent way to contact a human.

Edit: I should clarify that I mean Amazon retail. I don't use AWS, but I imagine it has much better support.

[busymom0]

I am from Canada and always had good experience with retail support.

[mixedCase]

Just ask in chat for a human after reaching a dead end.

[quickthrower2]

refunds are sublime

[zachrip]

I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though.

[eganist]

> I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though.

Pivoting the angle on your perspective a bit:

"If a customer having a problem with our service isn't technical enough to backchannel us, they're not technical enough to be a viral thorn in our side."

To be clear, this is a process defect, and no company should aspire to build this into their processes as a feature. It's a net negative for absolutely everyone except perhaps you, me, and in the short term, the company. I'd argue it's a long term negative for you and me too as we hawk a service to others based on our current experiences, keeping the product from improving for everyone, including ourselves.

[zachrip]

It could definitely (and is already) be a negative for some people. My hope is that support can become better and more async. By becoming async it becomes less "I get whoever I get when they answer the phone" and more "I get the support I actually need instead of being bounced around". I don't enjoy having to harass a company on twitter, I just hate it less than getting on the phone.

A good example of this is apple card support. You just text the support line. It's great because I don't need to wait on the phone. If someone doesn't have the info I need they can pass it on without me needing to know about it. I can continue my day without making a chore out of something. This is the part I was trying to highlight (not the reduced access to support).

[Sebb767]

I think the downvotes are because the comment you replied to stated

> This is how support is handled these days.

... with an implied all other things are dropped/neglected and you replied with

> I personally don't see this as entirely a negative.

I fully agree with your point that companies being available on social media, but your first comment can be read as supporting that other avenues are dropped and that's clearly a negative. The grandparent clearly replied to that reading of your comment.

[zachrip]

Yeah, I just meant to say that as a user of twitter it's nice to be able to find most companies and message them in one central place instead of dealing with phones, chatbots, etc. I'm definitely not advocating for removing phone or email support.

[namdnay]

i agree with you that async support is great, but chatbots and email have been there for a while. What is infuriating with Twitter is that it's basically one rule for the "powerful" (those who are on twitter and have followers/subscribers/whatever) and one for the others