Google and Customer Service: The Math Club Syndrome
October 12, 2008
Rhodri Marsden, writing in The Independent, gnaws on a topic that I have heard quite a few people discuss. Mr. Marsden’s article “Cyberclinic: Why Is It Impossible to Contact Google by Telephone” ran on October 8, 2008, but the story just made its way to rural Kentucky. You can read the opinion piece here. The point of the story is that people can’t get a Googler on the phone. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
‘The New York Times’ reported this week on the efforts of their readers to phone Google to resolve problems with their GMail service. After their emails went unanswered, they scoured the website for a contact number – but to no avail.
My thought was, “So, this is a surprise?” Mr. Marsden doesn’t understand what I call Math Club Syndrome, which I will explain in a moment.
I heard in early September 2008 that Google paid a big wheel consulting firm to provide some insight into Google’s sales activities. I haven’t seen the report, nor do I know if what I heard was true. I offer this as a possible Google action, not a fact. Here’s the story: the person with whom I was speaking told me that the big wheel consulting firm delivered its findings. Among these findings were these recommendations: return phone calls, keep appointments for meetings, and follow up.
I have had very few direct dealings with the GOOG. The most interesting was the interaction with the firm when my Programmable Search Engine piece appeared as a BearStearns’s note. The Googler calling asserted that the information in the PSE write up was confidential. We faxed the patent application numbers and the Googler dropped the matter. I concluded that Google doesn’t know what Google itself knows.
In my opinion, Google will change, but change won’t come too quickly.
I in a feeble attempt at humor characterize Google’s approach as the Math Club Syndrome. Here’s what I mean.
In math club, it is reassuring to be with people who understand math and those who like math, maybe like math more than sports, members of the opposite sex, parents, and the latest fashion trends.
As a former math club member, I remember the fun we had. And nothing elicited enjoyment and challenge like a reference to the Euler-Mascheroni constant. Yes! Do you feel the thrill?
So now you know what the Math Club Syndrome means.
If you don’t get it, you don’t belong. In my high school math club, people who didn’t get math were losers. Snort. Snort. We knew that there was no extra credit for working with people who were not in the Math Club.
My hunch is that this Math Club Syndrome influences Google’s approach to customer support. If you get it, you don’t need support. If you don’t get it, it’s not Google’s job to teach you to be Googley.
I was asked last week about the person Cyrus to whom I refer in my semi-humorous Web log posts. Well, Cyrus is (maybe was?) a Googler who told my son and the president of a search company in Utah that I faked (his word was allegedly “photoshopped”) a representation of Google’s little known dossier report output.
Brilliant and sparkling Cyrus did not know that Google put the shoddy and blurry image in a public Google patent document. Did Cyrus apologize?
No way, dude. Cyrus will go through his Googley life convinced that Mother Google would never create such a crappy graphic.
That’s the Math Club Syndrome, and that’s why Mr. Marsden, the New York Times, the Department of Agriculture, and others can’t get a Googler on the phone.
But there’s progress.
Before Google abandoned its exhibit at the Enterprise Search Summit in San Jose, there were six Googlers talking among themselves in the booth. Now the Googlers were not reaching out to attendees, but the Googlers were present and deeply engaged with one another just like my high school math club get togethers. On the third day of the show, no Googlers. So, in the exhibit two of the three days is a form of progress. Returning phone calls is right around the corner.
Agree? Disagree? Help me learn.
Stephen Arnold, October 12, 2008
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