Is Google My Business Cutting Back on Live Support?

Two weeks ago I saw that Google had eliminated a public Help file URL from which a user could contact Google My Business support.

This evening I saw this Tweet from Miriam Ellis:

Hey @GoogleMyBiz, been on hold on your phone support for half an hour. Anyone manning Twitter right now?

— Miriam Ellis (@Miriam_Ellis_) January 27, 2017

And this afternoon in the forum I saw this post: No More Contact Us? where the user noted:

Ive just logged into my account to see that there is no longer a contact us under the support tab. It just states “Need More Help?” and that does not let me fill out a form to contact and a “Send Feedback”. Have they cut off phone support for us who need it?

Well all support is not lost but it sure has been buried very deeply within the bowels of the Google My Business Center and signs seem to be pointing towards a desire to cut down on support phone calls.

Even after the public form was removed two weeks ago you could still go into the GMB, select support from the drop down and fairly quickly both find the correct button to get a call back.

Google now seems to hasve buried it at least two levels deeper and offered fewer support choices.

Here is the new instructions I wrote to now find it:

To get in touch with Google My Business Support ou need to:
1- log into your Google my business dashboard http://ift.tt/1quZNRx
2- select support from upper left hamburger menu
3- a help screen will appear to the right
4- It used to be just a scroll down to contact us
5- But now you have to dig into the specific problem
6- Click though to the appropriate help page
7- Read the help page and then
8- Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose most appropriate contact method for you (some are not always available)

At the end of that path, once you dig deep enough, you MIGHT see something like a contact request at the bottom of the help page. I did see one screen that offered a call back but after hitting it once, it disappeared on me. So while I think they may still offer limited call backs, the availability seems to have been dramatically decreased.

Could this be a bug in their support or a fluke in the phone system? Sure. I am waiting to hear whether these are mistakes or intentional actions to reduce call volume. I fear the latter.

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