Maybe you think Google doesn’t care much about customer care as a result of a past experience trying to get support from the company, but AdWords advertisers are learning the opposite is true.
Following up on an April 5, 2011 announcement for AdWords customers, Greg Sterling, a contributing editor and writer for Mashable, recently interviewed Google’s VP of Global Advertising and Product Operations, Francoise Brougher, to learn what has developed since the early spring announcement was made. According to his report on the interview that was posted this week, Sterling wrote that the AdWords customer support operation currently employs 1,000 people for email and telephone support and that it receives a whopping 10,000 phone calls each week. The calls emanate from customers who are located in 60 countries and the calls go to reps who are located in “several” contact center locations “around the world.”
The article noted that, while the addition of telephone support for current AdWords advertisers has clearly been beneficial to those customers, it has proven equally beneficial to Google, as the interactions have shed invaluable light on its customers’ needs and issues. The information it is garnering from these phone interactions is now being put to use by Google to guide marketing and influence product development, the article said. And apparently there is no shortage of information flowing in from these customer support calls as Sterling quoted Brougher as saying, “People like to talk.”
Calls from international customers are providing Google with information on cultural differences that was not readily apparent when it was offering online and e-mail support only, the article said. In addition, the article went on to say, Google is finding that the addition of telephone reps is helping it to better serve the needs of new small business advertisers, which comprise about 20 percent of its AdWords’ customers, who look to Google for advice and guidance.
Sterling noted that this Google customer care operation does not engage in outbound sales and only in-house reps are used for the endeavor, citing the fact that it believes it is, “able to deliver a much higher level of quality and service” with in-house reps. The reason it can say that with confidence is because Brougher reportedly told Sterling that Google is very proactive in tracking the ROI of this customer care effort, both in terms of its reps’ effectiveness and the benefit to its customers. It has concluded that its ROI is positive and has found an increase in advertising dollars from customers who have experienced the new telephone support.
In other news, ContactCenterSolutions reported, “A 27-year old San Antonio man faces felony charges and up to seven years of imprisonment for allegedly using Twitter (News - Alert) to harass and threaten prominent Google executive Marissa Mayer, the company's first female engineer and its current VP of local, maps and location services.”
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