Google’s Android Market Turning Developers into Customer Service Reps?

by Antonio Wells Apr 16, 2009 11:39 AM – 2 Comments

Developers selling paid apps not only have to deliver a sweet app, but in order to earn a reputable sales rank in the Android Market; they have to answer customer service inquiries such as: credit card problems, refunds and download issues (which are issues with the Market itself and not apps). There’s a thin line and understanding between Customer Service and Support.

Take NitroDesk, the developers of Exchange for TouchDown, they are most notable for their speedy and excellent support & service; see user reviews. But that demand adds strain and could alter developer focus. Developer customer support should be regarding true bugs and issues with their apps.

The Larva Lab developers recently compared the amount of customer support inquires on Android to that of iPhone and the result is tenfold. Apple handles all of the payment related issues whereas Google offers virtually none and leave it to customers referencing FAQs (which the natural customer would just contact the developer as its so easily available via the Market). In many cases, Apple would refer to the developer for issues then answer the customer offering a layer between customer and developer.

On another perspective, this model could work for some who are equipped and desire to interact with customers to possibly pitch more products and services.

What are your thoughts on Google’s lack of many things in to Android Market… true customer service representation being one? Comment below:

Tags: Android Market, Customer Service Customer Support, Google, Rants

Categorised in: Apps Blog

2 Comments

By Monica Martino on April 27, 2009 at 2:17 pm:

I understand this review is about our ability to give support to the Android customer, but, my complaint is really with Google’s support of the developer. We have had numerous technical issues with the Android Market and the Google checkout. All attempts to communicate with Google on either front have been futile. We are considering pulling our application so we don’t get a bad rep from their mess.

For example, we published our Privus Mobile application on 4/17. Apparently, when you publish The Market lists the application for sale immediately, even though The Market does not enable downloads for some unspecified period of time. ( There are numerous complaints about this on the forums.) As a result we had 20 customers try to purchase in the first 24 hours with every one them canceling since they could not download.

We finally had some true sales about a week later, but, in spite of requesting IPNs through the Google Checkout portal, we are NEVER notified of orders, sales, cancellations, etc. The only way to find data on this is to view the portal. The manual download of a .csv is pointless, since it only provides an order number, which cannot be matched to our installation/registration table.

If you or someone else actually has someone at Google who will respond to developer problems, please let me know! We tried emailing a number of contacts and amazingly received an email that said they would be ignoring our email since they had so many problems to fix and didn’t have time to address new issues! How extraordinary is that!!

I would be interested to hear if ANY developer is having a marginal experience with The Android Market, much less a good experience.

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By Jose on April 15, 2011 at 3:54 pm:

I got me a LG Android, two days later it stoped reconizing my password for Gmail. I went back to my provider bu they cant help me because is google. They can help with hardwere and the ocational softwere problem but for some reson my Gmail account was “Disabled” for no aperent reson. This would not be a big deal if the android is completly dependant of gmail.

I Understand how it can be frustrating for the phone providers when customers have an issue with the phone and providers or divelepers dont have the resorces neede to help the customers.

I love google as a company but they realy are droping the ball on this and if they dont get suport for the people that are helping sell there pruduct they will lose out for apple and other companies that give this suport to the consumers.

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