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A comment on Waze Carpool. Parent comment

Re:Waze Carpool by joeblau on Thursday January 25, 2018 @10:40AM (#16231518)
I've had the opposite experience, but this was probably further back then you. I remember trying to call Google to get info about Google maps and it was just a run around. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out who controlled the map tiles behind Apples Maps powered by Google and got nowhere.

Even if you go to Google's contact page now[1] it's obscure and the first thing they try to do is shuttle you off to forums or a boilerplate FAQ. You can't run a consumer business like that.

Google is great at building pure tech products like Google Search and Gmail, but not so good when it's a product where you might have to talk to a human being.

[1] - https://www.google.com/contact/

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Re:Waze Carpool by joshuamorton on Thursday January 25, 2018 @11:32AM (#16232048)
Just going to point out that for pixel phones for example, you type in "pixel customer support" on google, click on the "contact us" button, and then answer a couple of (really easy) questions and are given the option to use an online chat or a phone call with support.

(I work at Google, but I had the same experience before I worked there). I think the best way of putting it is that (the consumer part of) maps is a library book, and that you wouldn't expect phone support for a library book. You would expect phone support for a product you buy, and you get that. (Google's service for pretty much all of their paid products is decent, or at least it exists). Did/does Microsoft offer phone support for their free software products? I just looked for help with outlook, and got directed to...a chatbot.

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Re:Waze Carpool by mankyd on Thursday January 25, 2018 @10:50AM (#16231628)
Perhaps the difference is that Wifi, Fi, and the store in general are all product you pay for, whereas maps is not?
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Re:Waze Carpool by joeblau on Thursday January 25, 2018 @11:01AM (#16231750)
Yeah that's a possibility. As I mentioned, I haven't really tried to interact with Googles customer service in the past few years so maybe/hopefully it's a lot better now than it was then.
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