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The Nexus One admittedly had 3G connectivity issues. But equally disturbing is that users trying to gain support for their problems were met with silence and dead ends. Andy Rubin himself acknowledged the company needed to improve in the “support” department and you’ve got to cut them some slack – they’ve never been in this type of situation before.
Now the company seems focused on improving the support of their Google Phones by hiring an employee dedicated to managing exactly that – Phone Support Program Manager. Check out the listing:
The area: Online Sales and Operations
The Online Sales and Operations (OSO) team keeps Google growing and profitable. We are dedicated to supporting the company’s expanding base of advertisers, publishers and users in more than 40 languages on a global basis, and providing them with the highest levels of service. We are responsible for supporting customers and generating revenue from a broad range of products such as AdWords, AdSense, Gmail and Google Earth. This means that OSO team members need to be proactive, motivated, organized, responsible – and able to work well in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.
The role: Phone Support Program Manager, Android/Nexus OneAs Phone Support Program Manager for Android and the Nexus One, you are responsible for ramping up and managing operations of Google’s telephone support for our direct-to-consumer Android/Nexus One customers. You own our external partner management, aligning internal objectives and strategy with partners’ operations. Partnering with the Android Consumer Operations team, you are responsible for driving operational efficiency while providing outstanding support for our customers and identifying top user issues to feed back into the product development process. The optimal candidate will have direct experience in call center and partner management to drive customer satisfaction around their support experience.
Responsibilities:* Lead Google’s direct relationships with one-on-one support vendors to drive a successful customer experience for direct-to-consumer Android customers.
* Define and implement scalable business practices that leverage our internal best practices in one-to-many support to create efficiencies in high-touch support activities through channels such as phone and chat.
* Play a central role in helping the team build success metrics, reports, and infrastructure tools.
* Establish and manage to defined service level requirements to ensure vendors are meeting contractual requirements and customers are receiving target service levels and establish and manage training program for support representatives.
* Work with internal resources to provide escalation resolution for dissatisfied customers.Requirements:
* Bachelor’s degree preferred with a strong academic record. MBA a plus.
* At least 5 years of general business experience with direct experience managing call center operations directly or through a vendor.
* Excellent partner communication skills and presentation abilities, including comfort in front of a large audience.
* Excellence analytically with technical, contractual, and financial issues.
* In-depth knowledge of call center management tools such as Network Queue call routing, ACDs, IVR’s, CRM, performance management systems, and core call center metrics.
* Project management experience and ability to handle multiple time-sensitive projects and competing priorities.
* Ability to effectively think strategically and influence cross-functional teams, such as Technical Service, Product Development, and Engineering teams to resolve problems and to provide input into new features and products.
Way to be pro-active Google…me likey. Although one could argue they should have thought about this in advance, the important thing is that we’ll soon have better support when we need it!
[Thanks Ron!]
I’ll put in my application for it. :)
A day late and a dollar short. Shouldn’t a large company like Google have anticipated something like this? It’s not like it’s the first company to sell a phone or anything; they could have hired this position before it became an issue.
Nice to see some swift quick action on the subject
Ha. So you develop a new product, launch it, high fives all around, grab the cigars, sit back, things break, and THEN wonder who forgot to plan a support model? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Google (and Android), but seriously. How would this not have been a major project during development? Maybe their phone department is “still in beta”, like Gmail? (Or is that out of beta now?)
I’m sorry, but Google does not get slack on this one. They have already launched pay-for products like Google Apps, and I’m sure their corporate and government clients demand support. They know that when people put their cash towards something they expect support, unlike in Gmail where we can only hope for support. (And yes, Gmail is out of Beta)
I’m in agreement with the other commenters. I would’ve expected Google to have the foresight to have handled this before launch of the Nexus One.
Also, as a note, I’ve seen some users posting comments about issues with some Google apps (developed by Google) on the code.google.com forum website. The company needs to pay attention to some of these issues in order to placate many Android users out there.
I love Android operating system and Google but they like to do things retroactively. Just because your now setting up phone support does not mean your were not wrong in the first place. Just like how they in China restricted internet searches in compliance with Chinese Laws and are now lifting restrictions because restrictions go against personal freedoms. Give me a break. You should do right from the start. I’m getting the phone once it releases on Verizon and worry what support i will have for the Nexus One.
They are opening a can of worms with this one.. I can guarantee, that over 90 percent of the “support” calls they get, will have nothing to do with them, and there will be noting they can do for the customer calling.. It will mostly be sympathetic ear, and transfer to T Mobile, or AT&T or Verizon.. Yes it will probably be good for gathering information on problems in the OS they can work on, but they are probably getting that information anyway.
My Nexus One arrived today, but only after waiting 30 days because it was shipped to Uganda instead of the UK. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=723a045d9cf208cc
Its good to know Google are taking steps to be more active with support. Hopefully this means when such ridiculous errors happen in the future they will actually be able to deal with it faster.