Exactly, I've mentioned this a few times to friends, that it wouldn't surprise me one bit to hear on the news one day that some ex advertiser has gone postal at some G complex.
On the Adwords Help forums (there's a misnomer if ever there was one), there's actually been cases of people saying suicide is their only option because of G's antics. As stupid as that sounds, those forums seem awash with desperation from advertisers or potential advertisers. Quite the depressing place to visit.
One day Google will be forced to change and become more customer service related or they will lose the ultimate battle in E-commerce/advertising supremacy.
I know its common opinion that Google doesn't need to care. And that's true currently.
But part of that is because Google doesn't have a large customer presence yet. For instance if you asked 99.5% of Americans what their opinion of Google customer service was, they wouldn't have an opinion. This is a testimony of how little of player Google is in markets that effect most everybody's daily lives.
But the world changes. One day, internet commerce will be 100x what it is today. One day, someone is going to capture the 85% of the web thats not indexed. One day, Google is going to finally expand into some technology masses may be interested in (like Apple has).
Then Google will have a customer service reputation that will expand to the opinions of 100's of millions, not just a hundred thousand.
Google will have to change or they will one day suffer.
Imagine if McDonalds or Apple treated customers like Google does? Lol. There would be a mockery of these companies on the radio, talk shows, newspapers, news reports.
As giant as Google is I would not be at all surprised to see them falter along the way and be surpassed by an unforeseen entity. I mean who would have thought that IBM would have been dwarfed by Bill Gates. The world evolves.
Also, it is a popular opinion that Google does everything because they are just "smarter" than all us and they just "can" and we have "no idea" what there enormous plans for world domination are.
I think people forget that Google is run by humans. I am not so quick to think that their choice to create a written procedure for business clients to follow instead of person-to-person customer service was a brilliant decision by brilliant minds. I think it was a stupid decision by people who don't understand human interaction very well.
HUGE mistakes are made everyday at some of the most "successful" companies board rooms and lower high level command positions. Google has made some colossal ones, IMO. We may not see the direct effects of them now, but time will tell.
The mistakes the GM exectives made 25 years ago didn't put their company in bankruptcy for 25 years. Ironically, GM was doing the best it had in 25 years (efficiency and quality wise) when it filed for bankruptcy. The mistakes took a long time to be felt, but once they did, the company couldn't save itself.
I'm not saying that Google is GM or ever will be. All I'm saying is that Google isn't as BRILLIANT as everyone wants to say they are and that there will come a time when they will have to become customer service related or they will suffer greatly.