Comments on: Google Places Dashboard Call for Help

By: Dr. Keith McGahey

Dr. Keith McGahey — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:52:27 +0000

Wow, a help link. Stop the presses. Google has effectively put a new set of tires on the old jalopy that’s been parked on the front lawn for the past 5 years. What a frustrating mess, but at least they’ve taken a (single) step in the right direction. I’d be happy if G could plant even just a few more employees in the forums to help out confused business owners.

By: MC

MC — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:12:17 +0000

Question- And I may be asking a no brainer, but when a listing goes to a state of pending, is it common that the other listings in the account will also pend? I have seen this with a few of my Google accounts. At first I didn’t know what to do, but I believe it is the entire Google account that is being reviewed, even if the majority of the listings are fine according to the “quality guidelines”. Re claiming those correct listings in new Google accounts seems to fix the problem of being able to access analytic reports, and returns the listings to active, but is there something I’m missing? Is there a better way to go about this?

By: Andy Kuiper

Andy Kuiper — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:14:31 +0000

Stop making so much sense Mike; give the Googleplex braintrust a chance to come up with these types of things on their own

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:58:19 +0000

@Nyagoslav

If you assume that they need SMB good will for ad revenue and maintaining their current standing as a Brand then having a customer support process that works is a critical element.

Google Places needs to not only satisfy the 95% that it gets right but, in the end, needs to offer decent answers to the 5% that it hoses.

If they are going to do that in an automated way then they need to
1)Get their product working properly
and
2)Provide an interface that is self serve at every level and functions well.

I would contend, as well, since neither 1 nor 2 are really working that Google needs bodies to deal with the problem until such times as 1 and 2 are really in place.

By: Nyagoslav

Nyagoslav — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:32:46 +0000

@Andy – some Community Edits are available in Canada, which is still something

@Mike – true, but I don’t really see why Google would take the hassle to do this all and ease the life of the SMBs, when the current (low) level is still working OK for them.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:21:55 +0000

MapMaker as it is currently designed is an UGLY solution for most SMBs… AND some issues like Places Closed still take forever there. And it doesn’t solve the Google 3 step… You need to goto your Place Page to see that a Place has closed or merged, then go into Map Maker to fix it…

I am suggesting that Google needs an integrated customer support philosophy AND path to solve problems and whatever the tool(s) they need to be integrated into the Dashboard in a way that leads to ready solutions to common problems.

By: Nyagoslav

Nyagoslav — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:19:42 +0000

Mike, I can see your point, but I don’t really think complete unification of the process is possible as per current, unfortunately. Further improvement – yes, definitely.

And I still believe Map Maker is practically the only well working way to solve problems, so probably a big red “USE MAP MAKER TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS” should be places in every Google Places dashboard.

By: Andy Kuiper

Andy Kuiper — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:17:44 +0000

Map Maker editing is still not available in Canada – I’ve asked for an alert when it is ready for launch here

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:13:56 +0000

@Nyagoslav

My point isn’t that there aren’t ways to correct things… but that there are too many and too many confusing things to correct things. My point is that the process is all over the map.

By: Nyagoslav

Nyagoslav — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:09:42 +0000

I believe that while these changes might add some order to the obviously messy way in which Google deals with reported problems, they are not even close to what should actually be done.

However, I also believe many are missing an important point. The single best tool for solving Google Places issues currently is nothing else, but Google Map Maker. You can practically solve almost every problem via it and the response rate is way faster and it actually exists.