Google’s forum-based method of providing tech support works for many of the company’s consumer products, but didn’t work so well during the company’s failed experiment with the mobile handset business. Customers’ e-mail and Google Voice accounts are now often central to their lives, and Mark has learned that some problems simply don’t lend themselves to self-service tech support.

Providing support is hard… Harder still when you product is free or
very nearly so.

I’ve spent a few dollars porting my number to Google Voice, and buying
minutes to make calls. The service generally works pretty well,
except I can’t see my contacts. I haven’t been able to see them since
I moved my Voice account from a gmail.com login to my Google Apps
domain. Clicking on the Contacts link errors with “Forbidden Your
client does not have permission to get URL /voice/c/b/[google apps
email address]/ui/ContactManager from this server.” The only support
Google offers for Voice is via their forums, and not a single one of
my posts over the last few months have been answered. I understand
not wanting to provide “How do I do x” support, but when it is clearly
something that I cannot possible fix it would be nice to have an
option.

RELATED:
Google Voice Number Porting Stalled For 19 Days

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