We went threw all the expected steps to fix the problem. We moved it within his Places account. We reported the problem online. Nothing.

Finally, the client got a Tags sales rep on the phone, told him that he’s love to sign up, but can’t do so until his Places Page is showing for the correct city.

It was fixed in less than a day.

The call was a total surprise. In fact the introduction and the person referencing that he worked for Google almost led me to believe the call was spam.

I’ve reported many problems in the past and had never once gotten a response or call from normal Google operations. The call on the duplicate listing was actually rather quick relative to the most recent time I had reported it…and a fix ensued.

Of course I had reported the same problem many times in the past with no response.

Is it possible Google is testing some kinds of responses these days??

Who knows. They don’t tell us.

Mike’s response is not that of a normal business with normal customer service. He had to go to the source that is taking his payments–Tags–to get someone to respond.

Is there an implication there that Google gives customer service when you pay them with advertising…but not adwords…just boost or tags?

That would be weird. Did Mike get a response because he is a known public commentator on Google and it created a “heightened sense” of need to respond, similar in nature to the recent JC Penny situation wherein the NYTimes reported on the situation.

Hard to tell.

At the least, I experienced a positive call as did Ryan on the duplicate listing issue…and that is a small positive step….if not a sea change.

Hope it continues. Maybe someone from Google will be kind enough to come out of the shell and tell us what to expect.

Yes, it is but a single example of both a call back and a promise to fix merged records…. either would be good going forward but both would be like customer service heaven.

@Justin
One of the merged listings was doing Tags. I talked the other into doing Tags as well… 1)it provided an escalation path for the problem and 2)They were sharing the listing, one week one, the next week the other and Tags allowed the other phone to show during the time when it was their listing.

@Frank

End of Times is a GREAT analogy. Headline: Google Sets Up Customer Service Just in Time for Armageddon. Investment for Naught, Stock Plummets.

@Vlad
It could be the path I chose to get support… pay via Tags, call Tags, have them run it up the pole… or it could be just a one off fluke… Good luck

I am now expecting a swarm of locusts and some other signals that this may indeed be the end of the world as we know it.

I think most end times prophecies have ‘Google makes actual phone calls to actual customers’ as something that must occur for the end to come.

Good luck with everything, I am going to my bunker to wait this one out.