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Google now offering 24/7 phone support for all Apps customers

Summary: If you're a Google Apps for Business customer, you should be able to get an answer to your question at absolutely any time now.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. -- Google Apps for Business clients no longer have to rely on email alone anymore to get customer support.

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Google will now provide phone support, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, to small, medium, and large Google Apps for Business customers for all issues affecting "core services," such as Gmail, Calendar and other collaborative programs. Cases are handled directly by trained Google Apps experts.

Of course, customers can still opt for web-based support portal, online help forms, and online help center, but this is certainly a much faster way of getting a problem solved -- especially on a weekend or holiday.

Google's vice president of enterprise sales and operations, Amit Singh, explained at the Google Atmosphere 2011 summit on Monday morning that, "for the first time," Google is releasing stats about enterprise customer satisfaction for Google Apps.

Not surprisingly, that's because the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive as 80 percent of business customers and 90 percent of large business customers replied that they're "more than satisfied" with their support experience thus far.

Some additional stats provided at Google Atmosphere:

  • Four million businesses with 40 million users are using Google Apps at a rate of 5,000 businesses per day
  • 62 of the top 100 schools are on Google Apps
  • 97 percent of the "top Silicon Valley startups" are on Google Apps

Existing business customers include Virgin America, Genentech, Jaguar/Land Rover, Roberto Cavalli, the City of Pittsburgh, and the State of Wyoming.

New Google Apps customers announced at Atmosphere include Burberry (also a big fan of Salesforce.com), Casio, Equinox, and Goodyear, among others.

Related:

Topics: Mobility, Browser, CXO, Google

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  • Just when you thought that Google and consumer support is oxymoron, here we

    ... finally have some respect to its users -- at least to these who directly pay to Google.<br><br>The problem is that other clients, whose personal information gets sold to advertisers as part of the "deal", are still not considered to be "clients", hence continue treated like trash. This is because Google's actual clients in this situation are advertisers, and <b>the clients I wrote about are the commodity</b>.<br><br>Do you expect that Google would set up actual support service for a commodity?
    dderss
    Reply Vote

  • Great. there are two ways this can go

    This could mean the demise of Google Apps as the cost of maintaining the infrastructure is growing faster than its profitability, or it could mean that Google Apps is getting closer to be ready for the mid market. Google has killed lots of products in the past because of internal ROI targets....can they offer support and still be profitable?
    Your Non Advocate
    Reply Vote
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