Ask HN: I'm a small business and Google locked me out

As a dutiful user I obliged, and downloaded the authenticator app. I think it gave me 10 one time recovery codes, but of course I didn’t back them up externally :)

I was having some performance issues with my Samsung phone at the time, and a couple days later, did a factory reset. Then when it came back on and I tried to log into my google account, my stomach sank to the floor when I realized I could not get in without the authenticator app.

That was that. Everything gone. What an idiot :) Couldn’t even get on through a computer without the stupid codes I could no longer generate. Answered all the questions, identified specific emails, personal info etc. Google was not impressed.

In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be — but if you are a very large company (or have millions or tens of millions of users), it’s often not possible to have live support staff who have the knowledge to handle every issue. It’s not just about paying for it either — if you have tens of millions of customers, support doesn’t scale that way, irrespective of cost (if you pay more you can generally get people more committed to gaining the knowledge to offer good support, but you still have a relative fixed number of “good enough” candidates). And that doesn’t even account for the fact that a vast majority of questions/calls are for issues that can either be automated or handled by less-skilled/lower-paid support.

In the face of those realities, using external platforms to act as a signal boost/triage for the most critical issues isn’t necessarily the worst thing.

Nine or ten years ago, I visited Delta’s headquarters to see how they were using Twitter to inform and re-define their customer service experiences. Airlines were some of the first industries to scour social media for issues to handle in real time and to go from being reactive (you have an issue and use Twitter to complain), to proactive (you’re invited to reach out over Twitter DMs or Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp) and I think they’ve actually done a good job. (I’d be curious to see what it has been like for airlines the last month as there have been unprecedented cancellations and support volumes are flooded across contact points). I have to give Delta immense credit, even a decade ago, they were doing phenomenal work in the space. I’m a Diamond Medallion, which means I theoretically get highest-priority phone support — and the agents on the phone are fantastic for helping me with complicated itineraries or rebookings), but for many things (like applying a regional upgrade certificate), I just DM the Twitter account because it is faster and it is a way the agent can work with multiple customers at once.

It would be great if all small businesses had a direct line to their vendors, but in the absence of that (which isn’t realistic), at least there is a way to boost the signal and get attention.

Compare this with Amazon that publicly claims placing customer service above all else. At least if you work in CS there, you have the feeling that you are always a fundamental part of the company.

This is the downside (or hidden cost) of 2FA that most security experts purposefully ignore, because they work for companies like Google and only care about account security rather than user security.

And the support I received was fast ( just a timer or something of 40 seconds) till I got "in".

I personally have no complaints, but I'm not using it as a free service also.