Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, and what I learned.

Re:Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, ... by mattmanser on Saturday October 20, 2012 @05:08PM (#4678237)

I just want to echo this to make sure that everyone understands Google and Microsoft are worlds apart on support.

We've all heard about the horror stories that it doesn't matter what you do with Google you cannot get human support unless you get to the top of HN or Reddit.

MS are totally different, they offer support for every service, you just have to pay for it. I think they also offer different levels of support, some of our programmers at a previous (small) company could talk to the Silverlight team over problems they were having after it just came out.

Funnily enough, when I google "google paid support" the top result is this little (frightening) gem:

http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...

Compare that to this, "microsoft paid support":

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/services/en-id

I'm in no way affiliated with MS, actually use Google Apps myself.

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Re:Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, ... by azylman on Saturday October 20, 2012 @08:50PM (#4678573)

This "Google has no support" is a myth that I see consistently repeated on Hacker News that I can't understand it's repeated. Google's support situation is actually the same as Microsoft's: if you pay (i.e. have a Google Apps for Business) account, you get 24/7 phone support. I'm pretty sure that it's for any service linked to your Google Apps for Business account (including Voice), but not completely sure since I've never had to use it.

You can find it here: http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py

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Re:Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, ... by sstrudeau on Saturday October 20, 2012 @09:59PM (#4678646)

I've used Google Apps paid support and had disappointing experiences. Apps is only one of many Google products, many of which have no paid support options. I've had mediocre support experiences with support for other (expensive) products, like DFP. Overall, whenever I hit a wall (bad/missing/unclear documentation, apparent bugs, etc) with a Google service, I wince because I've learned to expect some pain.

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Re:Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, ... by mattmanser on Saturday October 20, 2012 @08:57PM (#4678582)

No it's not, you can't get consumer support for Google, you can for MS. You can't pick just one of their many services and go, "look at this one!".

I just went their with my free apps account and it's not exactly forthcoming about how either.

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Re:Google Voice lost my business number. How I got it back, ... by azylman on Sunday October 21, 2012 @10:59PM (#4681659)

What are you talking about? I posted a link with their support options and your response is "No, you can't get support". Clearly, you can - I linked to it. If I go there with my free apps account it's crystal clear, in big letters: "Email and phone support: Not available for the free edition of Google Apps. Find out about upgrading to Google Apps for Business."

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