[gorbachev]

"they need to actually fix their user support"

Everyone knows about their customer service issues. Google must know it's a problem, but for some unknown reason (probably shareholder value) refuses to fix it.

They are never going to address their shitty customer service.

[throwawaysleep]

Customer support is not worth it. There is a reason companies in general don’t invest in it, as it is really just a money pit.

I work for a company that has decided that any contract under 5K ARR can’t get anything other than copy and pasted answers and certainly can’t get real help (even if they did find a real bug).

The support team are just told to give them the runaround until they leave, as by making a support request they become no longer profitable.

Can only imagine how true that would be of phones and user accounts.

[SkyPuncher]

What a short cited attitude. Eventuality, the bigger contracts will start to leave because they’ll have no idea if they’re above or below that profit threshold.

[throwawaysleep]

None of us are planning to be here for long, so anything that can work in quarters at the cost of the future is fine.

[michaelcampbell]

To where? Every corporation is going this route.

[j-bos]

Are practices like the above allowable under FTC rules?

[NoRelToEmber]

Why not charge for support? And waive those charges for clients above some (public) spending threshold (to reduce the perverse incentive of making the product difficult to use so you can profit on support)?

[DropInIn]

Because then they both lose out on that "free" 5k And reduce sales as a result of fee aversion and "unknowability of cost" issue...

Just google A/B testing done on this already. Consumer behaviours are well established in this regard.