Well, as the title says, Im making a mental note not to let our own customer service slide. Its amazing how bad two huge companies I tried to contact today were. I feel like if I didnt take a nap today, I’d have gone crazy. While we are small, Im going to try and start with a slightly bigger business mentality and become organized.
So I started off with a poor nights sleep. Not great, I’ll survive but man…after lunch, a little nap really helped. Im glad I did because the round about bullshit that came after my nap would have made me snap. Two huge companies out there we are using just absolutely have horrible customer service problems. Maybe I expect too much.
So, it starts off with Google. We use their map API which works well. I got charged $200 for usage today which in itself is not a big deal, but Im confused. Google says clearly that you get $200 in free credits each month and they reset at the beginning of the month. Today is the 8th and we have used about $265 worth of API. I should get $200 in credits right? Yeah, cant find that. I see charges of $172 and $172 in credits but somehow we got charged $200. So I figure, lets contact billing and see if there is a mistake. YOU CANT!!!!!!!!!!! You get some bullshit bot that sucks. Its worthless. With Google being so big and has Gemini for AI, you figured they would use it for their customer service. Nope. Ending up, you have to PAY for service. You cant chat, call or create a ticket unless you pay. I get it, if you want some API help and expensive technical support…but billing? COME ON!
After that, I got an email saying Zoom is porting our 1-800 number on Thursday at 11:30am. Good and bad. Good its happening, but bad its in the middle of the dang day. So I need to setup the employees on Zoom. Well, when you try to add employees for their phone service, it says you need to add a license. Ok, I’ll buy more licenses, that was expected. How do you do that…click the link and it takes you to the billing page. Ok, Im very technical savvy and can figure out most things but Zoom has thrown me for a loop. I clicked a link that said to buy licenses for employees. I get directed to my phone plan. Ok, nowhere to buy licenses. Ok, lets edit the existing plan. When you open that up, it shows calling plans. In that it says, each calling plan comes with a new local phone number. I dont need that, I just need licenses. Each employee needs an extension and will use the 1800 to call out. There is a + – buttons to add numbers or subtract them. See the image below. I dont need another calling plan, I dont need more phone numbers, I need licenses as the previous screen told me.
Im pretty sure I need to crank up that 4 number in the image above (it was a 1 before), but I don’t really need phone numbers, I just need licenses. So I call support…we dont pay for phone support. WTF. Ok, so I try live chat. I go round and round where the support chat guy says I need Zoom calling license. I say cool…show me where I can do that. I want a license, but how do I get it. Finally I explain to him our current setup with Grasshopper. Ok, so we need 4 people making outbound calls but don’t need 4 local phone numbers. We are going to use our toll free number to call out. Then he tells me I cant port my toll free number from Grasshopper. I told him I have a support ticket saying it will be done in 2 days. I gave up and just said thank you for your help. He asked if I’d like him to help buy the license and I said no. He didnt exactly seem to know the answers.
So I call the sales department…where I can talk to someone. Really nice Filipino lady on the other end. Same story. I explain what Im trying to do and she said I need more licenses. I say ok, where do I get licenses. She takes me to the page above and says to add US and Canada licenses. Do I add another calling plan? I dont need any more local phone numbers. We go back and forth and after about 15 minutes Im back to what I figured was the right answer. Crank up that plus sign next to 4 and click purchase. Get phone numbers you dont need because thats the way the system works. I learned a “Calling Plan” = “License” = “Local Phone Number”. Can they make that any more confusing? They asked if I wanted to respond to an onboarding survey. I sure did. Based on my response, they are going to call me to follow up. I hope they do.
