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Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

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Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#61

Post by Mithaldu »

nzk1 wrote: post #56
Mithaldu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't do support via phone, you should have a phone number so one can get an actual human being in realtime interaction in case your system gets so fucked up that normal procedures break down. As far as i'm concerned you're not a company that takes business seriously if i can't call you. And this is echoed by many people i know, even though we prefer most of our communication to be online.

so according to you, GitHub isn't a serious business?

You're using different words than i wrote, so i can't tell if we're talking about the same thing. I wrote "not a company that takes business seriously". What does "serious business" mean?

That said, assuming you intended to say the same thing i did:

While Github are by and large nice people who found a good way to help people and make money with it, they do not take their business seriously.

In the past my experience has been that in cases which involve systemic issues with their entire design, or bugs exhibited on their website but involving third-party software (i.e. hard problems) their responses have been:

  * workarounds instead of even considering an investigation into change
    (even when they cause problems for OS projects due to no action of
    said project whatsoever)
  * invitations to fix the third-party software they chose
  * flat out refusal to even look at bugs in their website because they
    don't support older browsers (see Opera 12 vs. 15+)
Lastly, i'm a paying customer. Nothing i do with Git involving my lifelihood or anything remotely serious depends on Github, because in a case of emergency i cannot even have a reasonable expectation of aid from them. I'll happily use and recommend their service and gladly pay them, but only with the caveat that they take things about as seriously as a bunch of guys on a hiking trip. †

† http://octobeer.me/

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#62

Post by Mithaldu »

ericd wrote: post #58
Mithaldu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't do support via phone, you should have a phone number so one can get an actual human being in realtime interaction in case your system gets so fucked up that normal procedures break down. As far as i'm concerned you're not a company that takes business seriously if i can't call you. And this is echoed by many people i know, even though we prefer most of our communication to be online.

Come on with the phone number zealotry. It's very hard as a rapidly growing small-medium sized business to provide great phone service (on the level of being able to fix random problems on the spot), and if you can't provide great phone service, it's generally better to stick to asynchronous online methods where you can provide better service.

I'm not sure if my post wasn't clear enough. Let me try and rephrase:

It's fine to deny phone support by default and demand usage of online tools. However if you don't provide a phone number for emergencies and cases where you fucked up, you don't take business seriously.

Doesn't mean i think you shouldn't do business. Simply means i won't trust you with anything remotely important.

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#63

Post by justin66 »

jakejake wrote: post #19

To have $180 taken from your account is certainly nothing to sneeze at. At certain points in my life that could have seriously affected my ability to pay rent! It seems rather drastic to totally drop the service and do a chargeback after 3 days, though. Obviously something has slipped through the cracks. Uber is a super slick system, but I'd bet money there's still people behind the scenes scrambling to keep the gear…

> It seems rather drastic to totally drop the service and do a chargeback after 3 days, though. Obviously something has slipped through the cracks.

That's the power of the chargeback, though. They might not have a customer service number but they've got a number the credit card company knows how to call. To avoid this situation in the future, an obvious solution presents itself...

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#64

Post by chimeracoder »

jdminhbg wrote: post #55
mikeash wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank your for your informative and thought-out rebuttal. Every taxi I've ever ridden in clearly lays out the initial charge, how much distance is included, how much additional distance is charged, how much idle time is charged, and any additional fees.

That's really useful if you know what the distance is to your destination off the top of your head, or know that the driver is taking the shortest route to it. Also useful if the taxi driver actually engages the meter, or doesn't claim that the credit card reader is "broken." The idea that taxi regulations somehow make pricing transparent or predictable is completely divorced from reality.

> claim that the credit card reader is "broken."

Fortunately, the law protects you again in this case. In NYC (and SF too, I believe), if the credit card machine doesn't work, and the cab driver doesn't tell you before you start the ride, you don't have to pay a dime.

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#65

Post by mjn »

mikeash wrote: post #43
nostromo wrote: post #31

I'm long on Uber and Lyft but their approach to billing is lacking. Uber really should provide some sort of cost breakdown on your previous rides. (They provide quotes, but not itemized receipts.) But at least you can get a sense for how much they charge on their website. Lyft, hilariously, doesn't tell you how much they charge! At all! What on Earth is their thinking behind that? Is it miles? Minutes? Am I charged b…

It's amusing that various local taxi regulations, which Uber and friends have long decried as being unfair, inefficient, outdated, etc. are pretty much the sole reason taxi pricing is transparent.

Not only transparent, but predictable: you don't have to read the fine print on each individual taxi to figure out if this particular fellow is charging you something absurd. That's something Sweden has run into with its deregulation of taxis: http://www.thelocal.se/20120425/40476

The gist of it is that some independent taxi drivers will legally post prices about 20x the going rate. Of course nobody who both knows what they're doing and reads the price will take such a taxi. But the business model / scam is to snag just a handful of clueless rides each day, especially targeting tourists arriving at Stockholm Airport. Then rack up huge profits on a small number of rides. It helps that tourists arriving at the Stockholm airport typically: 1) don't know what the going rate for taxi service is; 2) don't have an intuitive conception of what prices in Swedish Kronor mean; and 3) don't know how to quickly locate and read the posted prices.

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#66

Post by justin66 »

Mithaldu wrote: post #62
ericd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on with the phone number zealotry. It's very hard as a rapidly growing small-medium sized business to provide great phone service (on the level of being able to fix random problems on the spot), and if you can't provide great phone service, it's generally better to stick to asynchronous online methods where you can provide better service.

I'm not sure if my post wasn't clear enough. Let me try and rephrase: It's fine to deny phone support by default and demand usage of online tools. However if you don't provide a phone number for emergencies and cases where you fucked up, you don't take business seriously. Doesn't mean i think you shouldn't do business. Simply means i won't trust you with anything remotely important.

The trouble with providing a phone number which is only intended for emergencies is that customers will learn that they can call it for ANYTHING. And woe to the company that says "That doesn't sound very serious! This number is only for emergencies, can you please send us an email? Bye now."

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#67

Post by Mithaldu »

justin66 wrote: post #66
Mithaldu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if my post wasn't clear enough. Let me try and rephrase: It's fine to deny phone support by default and demand usage of online tools. However if you don't provide a phone number for emergencies and cases where you fucked up, you don't take business seriously. Doesn't mean i think you shouldn't do business. Simply means i won't trust you with anything remotely important.

The trouble with providing a phone number which is only intended for emergencies is that customers will learn that they can call it for ANYTHING. And woe to the company that says "That doesn't sound very serious! This number is only for emergencies, can you please send us an email? Bye now."

That's a matter of bad training.

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#68

Post by pbreit »

Mithaldu wrote: post #52
pbreit wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful, the lesson for the rider may end up being a ban from the service. All because he couldn't wait a business day for a response (the ride was Sunday around noon, Monday was a holiday, a Tweet reply came Tuesday).

What makes you think he'd ever even want to trust them again when they happily take 80$ of him, make no movements to return them and leave him with exactly zero communication as to why that is?

They didn't happily take money form him. There apparently was a billing mistake or 2. And there has been at least one communication. I would be very surprised if he never wanted to use Uber again.

Re: Beware: Uber Has No Customer Service and Still Has Bugs

#69

Post by justin66 »

Mithaldu wrote: post #67
justin66 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with providing a phone number which is only intended for emergencies is that customers will learn that they can call it for ANYTHING. And woe to the company that says "That doesn't sound very serious! This number is only for emergencies, can you please send us an email? Bye now."

That's a matter of bad training.

No. The situation of any phone support professional who is under management pressure to both provide quality service and filter out "unimportant" requests is untenable. The quality of support will end up sucking.

The "serious problem phone support only" thing is a nice, MBAish compromise idea that won't work well. Everyone thinks their problems are serious. The way to make this work is to provide a phone support number AND to make the web- and app-based support tools work so well customers won't feel a need to call it very often.

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