Ron Schenone

Google Gmail – We’re Sorry – Is It Enough?

Posted by on Aug 12, 2008 | 14 Comments

Google has posted on their blog site a ‘we’re sorry’ page stating that they [Google] ‘feel our pain’. But do they really? In their statement the search giant states that:

 Many of you had trouble accessing Gmail for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we’re really sorry. The issue was caused by a temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly. Everything should be back to normal by the time you read this.

We heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts. We followed all the emails to our support team and user group, we fielded phone calls from Google Apps customers and friends, and we saw the many Twitter posts. (We also heard from plenty of Googlers, who use Gmail for company email.) We never take for granted the commitment we’ve made to running an email service that you can count on.

 Posted by Todd Jackson, Gmail Product Manager

Well Todd I certainly hope that Google is taking this seriously. I am still feeling the sting when my Gmail account was disabled last month and the lack of support that I received. By lack of support I mean the time delay it took to get my system back up and running. It had an affect on my blogging abilities.

I’m still some what apprehensive about using Gmail as by main source of receiving alerts. I am sure that others are also feeling the pain. If Google wants to take its users seriously, how about a REAL support phone number to call? Free or not, Google owes its users more direct support when the system goes afoul.

What do you think? Should Google provide its Gmail users better support?

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • teddgcm

    Isn’t G-Mail a free service? I mean, I have an account with them but I rely on my email that is provided by my ISP. To complain about an issue from something that is provided free of charge, to me, is petty. I don’t remember this happening to them in the past and just because they had one issue doesn’t mean they are a poor service. Now, if my email went down I would feel justified in complaining because I pay for it and I might request some kind of credit. But Gmail is free and has served many users very well over the years. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes and technology fails from time to time. If you are not comfortable using it, then don’t.

  • http://www.vzvalley.com Allen Price

    Certainly, no one wants their email not to work. But I have to give Google credit for apologizing and for acknowledging the problem when it occurred.

    In contrast, I also had (not past tense) a MobileMe account, which was also down. They’ve had their problems, and the online chat feature was disabled for a time. I called Apple THREE times, got disconnected once, got insufficient assistance once, and got someone who was very nice but could not help me or accept my cancellation request. Online chat opened up, but I had to wait my turn for over an hour and a half. Finally, I got someone who helped me cancel. I was transferring things back to Gmail when I realized it too was out.

    But I wasn’t paying for that out age.

  • michael

    what do we think? we think your post is boring and does not say anything of any value. (plus, honestly, whenever we hear someones saying “is sorry enough?”, well, it’s just annoying).

  • Bill Noe

    I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand I have come to rely on gmail as well as other Google products and when they are down it is a huge PITA. On the other hand it is free. If I was paying money for a service I would insist that a phone number be available for tech support. But this is free.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Thanks for the comments.
    I think where the frustration comes from is that Google doesn’t post anywhere that there is a problem.

    Yes, it is free and yes, systems do go down, but all I am asking is to just let us know.

    When I got locked out of my gmail account recently, I received no explanation for this. When I did finally figure out how to contact Google, I received plain vanilla emails.

    Heh teddgcm,

    That is not an option. Not only do I use gmail, but also Google adsense which requires a Google account. The account is also used for Google Apps as well as other Google services.

    I not only got locked out of my email, but ALL services.

    I hope this explains my concerns.:-)

  • Jerry

    I think people don’t know when and how to appreciate things these days. If you’re “expecting” a free service to do more, then you’re asking them to go out of business; while you can recommend ideas and merely “anticipate,” certainly, the words you chose here today don’t reflect that. We should be thankful for what they’re doing.

  • Rachel

    Ron, it would be nice if we got a warning about the gmail outage, and it would have been great if the people Sichuan, China got a telegram about that earthquake. My point is, first of all, stuff like this happens and many times when technology fails there simply is no warning. Also, I’m sometimes annoyed at people’s dependence on technology, even those who use gmail for business. It wasn’t the end of the world and as far as I know, nobody died.

  • alicia

    Only in America is there this overwhelming sense of entitlement.

  • mickey

    “Free or not, Google owes its users more direct support when the system goes afoul.”

    no, they do not. google doesn’t owe you a thing, period, if you’re not paying for its services. the most they should do is tell the users that something is wrong and they’re working on it. of course it would be nice if there was on-demand failover. it would also be nice if youtube videos were dvd quality.

    if you’re paying for your email to be hosted with google, that’s one thing and business users should indeed expect a certain level of support and options. but you get what you pay for and i’m ecstatic that gmail’s been so highly available since i started using it in 2005. pop for free, imap for free, options like crazy — no one else was doing as much, certainly not as thoroughly, as google was at the time (and still is), and they’re still ahead of the curve on free services in general.

    “I’m still some what apprehensive about using Gmail as by main source of receiving alerts. ”

    come on. three hours (if that) of downtime and suddenly you’re ready to run for cover?

    should youtube provide support if you host a video there and can’t get to it for a few hours? should amazon provide support if you can’t download free mp3s from its site for two hours?

    your only legitimate gripe is not being able to get to adsense. use of google’s other (free) services is a convenience, nothing more, and you are not entitled to support for anything you don’t pay for.

  • jtg

    Eh, free service which still (and probably will always) have the subtitle “BETA.” In little world this means they could simply turn gmail off one day because they feel like it, and I wouldn’t have the right to cry fowl.

    Of course, I trust Google to at least give me fair warning on a permanent outage.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. It is appreciated.

  • George

    by signing up for gmail, we are letting them make the billions of dollars they do, its all about the ads for them.

    absolutely they should have better support, and i would LOVE A NUMBER!!!!

    we dont realize that without us, there would be no google, they owe everything to the consumer, we dont owe anything to them. free or not.

  • Dorothy Weber

    I will not be using gmail as my main source of receiving @mails any more………………….I lost too much time fiddling around yesterday !!

    While I do APPRECIATE the ‘free’ service – I also appreciate dependability.

    My gmail is down AGAIN!! !! today………………This SUCKS !! !!

  • DaveP

    Until the ads are gone, I will never consider Gmail, or any other advertising supported web service, ‘free’. And you shouldn’t either!

    We pay for Gmail every time we use it. It may not amount to much on an individual basis (pennies per week), and the money is not paid by us directly, but we do pay for it by accepting that the ads are there and using the service anyway. When you multiply those few pennies generated by each account by the millions of users that use Gmail (and Google as a whole) every day, you realize very quickly that, collectively, we are a cash cow worth HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR. So NO, Gmail is NOT free. Anyone who feels differently is sorely mistaken.

    Without us, no revenue, without revenue, no Google.

    So yes, Google does owe us some sort of direct support when things go wrong for us. How much more support would be appropriate for a customer base of millions that’s only worth pennies per user? It’s hard to say without knowing more information, but some method or procedure that would eventually result in live one-on-one contact with a technician would be appropriate for the cases that can’t be resolved otherwise.