Google apps get 24/7 phone support

Google just got more business-friendly, pushing further into the corporate software apps arena after it added 24/7 phone support for customers of its Google Apps. The search giant announced the support, previously available only to its biggest customers, for small and medium companies as well, at its annual Atmosphere conference in California. "In the early days, our customers reached us mainly through email, and our 24 x 7 phone support was limited to critical issues. To improve the experience of our customers, we now provide 24 x 7 phone support to small, medium, and large Google Apps for Business customers for all issues affecting the core services," Jocelyn Ding, vice president for Google Enterprise Operations, said in a blog post. She said customers may also receive support through Google's web-based support portal, online help forms, and online help center. All support cases are handled directly by trained Google Apps experts, she added. Ding said customer satisfaction is a support metric it is especially passionate about. "We measure customer satisfaction by asking for feedback on a seven point scale at the time we close a support case. As measured on this scale, 80% of our business customers and 90% of our large business customers indicate that they’re more than satisfied with their support experience. While we’re proud of these ratings, we want to do even better. Our goal is to achieve an overall satisfaction rating of 95%," she said. A separate article on CNET said Google has continued to push into the business application world largely dominated by rival Microsoft. CNET also said Google announced that it has won several new clients for Google Apps including Burberry, Goodyear, Guardian Life Insurance, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Amit Singh, Google’s vice president of enterprise sales and operations, noted that “thousands" of businesses now switch from Microsoft to Google Apps every day, CNET said. The CNET article also quoted Google as saying more than four million businesses, and more than 40 million customers, use Google Apps. Just last month, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told the Web 2.0 conference that Microsoft was “winning, winning, winning, winning, winning" customers for its cloud computing services, such as Office 365, a Web-connected version of its familiar Office productivity suite. “I think we’re doing a bit of winning ourselves," Singh said at Atmosphere, viewed via Web stream by CNET. But CNET said Microsoft counter-programmed against the conference, posting a blog item saying that it should be called “Admosphere," and noting that Google is trying to “convince this audience that it cares about businesses as much as advertisers." — TJD, GMA News