Larry Page is the co-founder of Google. I emailed Larry the note below. The note is a plea for Larry’s assistance. Zayo Group and Envysion use Google Groups extensively. We have found it to be a fantastic and powerful platform for sharing company information with one another. However, the platform has had stability problems. We’ve tried to go through Google customer service channels, but have been disappointed with the responsiveness.
Larry did not respond to the note. Should he have? Is Google showing signs of growing pains? All companies get penalized when they stop taking care of their customers. Google, despite all its success, is no different.
Alas, we did see a major problem be fixed within one of Google Groups. Was it related to this note from Larry? More on the fix tomorrow.
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From: Dan Caruso
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 12:26 PM
To: larry@google.com
Cc: Sandi Mays
Subject: CEO’s feedback and request for assistance
Larry,
We haven’t met but I hope we will get a chance to meet in person at some point. Congratulations on the success you are having at Google.
By way of background, I am CEO of a venture backed company called Zayo Group—a well funded and successful roll-up of fiber-based telecom companies. I am also chairman of Envysion, an earlier stage VC backed company that leads the emerging Managed Video as a Service (“MVaaS”) space. I sit on a couple of boards as well–GTS Telecom, the leading fiber-based alternative carrier in Central Europe, and NGT, a wholesale provider of VoIP. I was one of the founding execs at Level 3 Communications and was the CEO who took ICG Communications private and managed a very successful turnaround.
The reason I am reaching out to you is to get some help on a Google product that we use extensively: Google Groups. We use it as an important tool in our business processes and I have sung its praises with my investors and the various companies I am involved with. However, the product has become increasingly unreliable. My folks have attempted to reach out to Google to at least understand what to expect. If we know Google is committed to the product and is trying to fix the de-stability issues, we will stick with it. To date, we have not been successful in getting interaction with anyone through Google’s help desk mechanisms.
I am not looking for you to address this personally. Instead, I am hoping you can have an appropriate senior level person reach out to us and provide us information.
I also thought you might appreciate some feedback on the Google’s lack of responsiveness in this area. I am sure growing pains are a challenge for Google—this email hopefully will spark some action in an important customer service areas. I’ve attached below some specifics on the problem as well as how my chief of staff tried to get Google’s help.
I appreciate any attention you can give to this.
Dan
Dan Caruso
Visit my blog: www.bearonbusiness.com
http://www.gtsce.com
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Per Section 14.2 of the Google Terms of Service:
http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en
14.2 YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.”
Matthew, Matthew, Matthew…do you work for Google? I get the fact that Google is not contractually obligated to get their service to work. I assume, nonetheless, that Google wants it to work and wants it to be a reliable tool. Do you agree?
Google cannot lose site that its success is in part because it is viewed favorably by its customers. If the tide turns away from them, they will be shocked as to how quickly billions of market cap can evaporate.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “you get what you pay for”. Can a person really complain about the “customer service” and call themselves a “customer” if they don’t actually pay for anything?
If you get a flat tire on the free car that you won on the radio…are you going to call and write an email to the vice president of general motors complaining? Probably not. You’d be better to cut your losses, and move to a platform that guarantees uptime and the availability of support.
The glass is neither half empty…nor half full…
It’s twice as big as it needs to be.
Matthew, I disagree. Google wants us to use their products. Why? Because they make money off of us if we use it. They are capitalists. And they are good at it. I presume they want their products to work very well, whether or not we pay them a direct fee or they monetize the investment via advertising.
Their Groups product is very powerful, in part because it is so extensible across organizational lines. We use it as a vehicle to share information (in closed user groups) with non-Zayo employees. This is far easier by using a platform that is readily accessible by anyone who uses Google (and who doesn’t?).
If their search engine was faulty, do you not think they would respond? Don’t you think it is in their self interests to get it to work? Do you think you could get a better search product by paying a fee, instead of taking advantage of their service?
Anyway, this is my perspective. And if Google wants to remain king for as far as the eye can see, it should be theirs.